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TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 


•S&&- 


TRANSITIONAL    ERAS 
IN    THOUGHT 


WITH   SPECIAL  REFERENCE 
TO   THE   PRESENT   AGE 


BY 


A.  C.  ARMSTRONG,  Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY   IN    WESLEYAN   UNIVERSITY 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  <fc  CO.,  Ltd. 
1904 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1904, 
By  THE   MAC  MILL  AN   COMPANY. 


Set  up,  electrotyped,  and  published  January,  1904. 


NortoooB  $rtss 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


5L 

3  03 

Nil 


TO 

MY  FATHER'S  MEMORY 


1546091 


PREFACE 

The  following  treatise  is  an  inquiry  into  the  devel- 
opment of  Western  thought  and  culture,  and  in  par- 
ticular their  development  during  the  epochs  which  are 
specifically  considered  in  the  text.  Arguing  from  the 
nature  of  thought  at  large  and  the  conditions  under 
which  it  develops,  as  well  as  from  a  partial  acquaint- 
ance with  parallel  eras  in  other  civilizations  than  our 
own,  the  writer  is  of  the  opinion  that  conclusions 
similar  to  those  which  have  here  been  drawn  would 
hold  good  of  transitional  eras  generally.  But  since, 
for  the  most  part,  the  thesis  defended  is  discussed  with 
primary  reference  to  the  progress  of  European  or 
Western  civilization,  the  results  of  the  inquiry  fully 
apply  to  this  alone. 

Some  years  ago  the  attention  of  the  writer  was 
attracted  by  the  analogies  which  exist  between  the 
age  of  the  Sophists  in  ancient  Greece  and  the  later 
eighteenth  century  in  France.  Both  of  these  eras 
are  termed  periods  of  Aufklarung,  or  Enlightenment 
or  Illumination.  Both  are  characterized  by  notable 
movements  in  thought,  philosophical  and  religious,  in 
political  and  social  organization,  in  practical  life  and 


viii  PREFACE 

conduct,  which  differ  in  the  two  ages  by  all  the  diver- 
gence which  measures  the  distance  of  antiquity  from 
modern  times,  but  which,  notwithstanding  this  diver- 
sity, in  spite  also  of  the  special  phenomena  distinctive 
of  the  two  epochs,  are  so  resemblant  that  the  unity  of 
name  is  justified.  The  suggestion  then  lay  near  to  ask 
in  how  far  a  similar  likeness  holds  among  other  eras 
of  transition,  and,  since  the  historian  of  opinion,  unlike 
the  historian  of  events,  still  permits  himself  to  weigh 
the  significance  of  the  facts  which  he  records,  what 
inferences  follow  bearing  on  the  evolution  of  opinion 
and  the  work  which  thought  is  set  to  do. 

The  outcome  of  this  inquiry  is  given  in  the  present 
volume.  The  questions  proposed  are  considered  in  the 
first  instance  from  the  standpoint  of  reflective  thinking 
and  with  reference  to  its  problems  ;  of  thought  always, 
however,  in  its  broader  reaches,  as  connected  with  life, 
individual  and  social,  as  related  to  the  state  and  bear- 
ing on  civil  government,  as  influencing  conduct,  and 
affecting  not  only  theological  beliefs,  but  religious  prac- 
tice. As  the  investigation  has  proceeded,  moreover, 
attention  has  for  several  reasons  been  increasingly 
directed  to  the  present  age.  This,  too,  is  an  era  of 
transition ;  and  whatever  can  be  learned  about  these 
eras  as  a  class  has  a  peculiar  meaning  for  thinkers  who 
are  grappling  with  the  perplexities  of  our  own  time  — 
provided  the  errors  be  avoided  which,  positive  and 
negative,   have   sometimes    marred    the   researches   of 


PREFACE  IX 

earlier  investigators  in  the  field.1  But  in  order  that 
such  inferences  should  possess  the  highest  value,  they 
must  be  brought  into  correlation  with  the  special  cir- 
cumstances upon  which  the  progress  of  culture  in  the 
given  age  depends.  Therefore  the  author  has  deemed 
it  pertinent,  after  the  general  discussion  of  his  theme, 
to  make  some  more  particular  application  of  his  con- 
clusions to  the  elucidation  and  criticism  of  views  which 
of  late  have  been  advanced  as  solutions  for  pressing 
problems,  or  as  the  principles  on  which  the  thought 
of  the  future  may  advantageously  be  based. 

Many  of  the  subjects  treated  in  the  text  have  also 
been  discussed  before  different  learned  bodies,  among 
which  may  be  mentioned  the  American  Psychological 
Association,  the  Philosophical  Clubs  of  Yale  University 
and  Bryn  Mawr  College,  the  Philosophical  Society  of 
Oxford,  England,  and  Hartford  Theological  Seminary. 
Parts  of  my  material,  further,  have  been  printed  in 
different  periodicals,  as  noted  at  the  places  where  they 
are  incorporated  in  the  present  argument. 

For  suggestions  and  advice  during  the  preparation 
of  the  work  I  am  indebted  to  several  friends  and 
colleagues,  to  whom  I  desire  to  express  my  thanks; 
in  particular,  to  Rev.  Paul  van  Dyke,  D.D.,  Professor 
of  History  in  Princeton  University. 

Wesleyan  University, 
November,  1903. 

i  Cf.  chap.  I.,  p.  4  note. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I.    Transitional  Eras  in  Thought      ....  1 

II.    Typical  Eras  of  Transition 45 

III.  Science  and  Doubt 87 

IV.  The    Historical    Spirit    and    the    Theory    of 

Evolution 132 

V.    The  Relation  of  Thought  to  Social  Movements  185 

VI.     The  Appeal  to  Faith 238 

VII.    The  Close  of  Transitional  Eras          .        .        .  287 


Index 337 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 
CHAPTER  I1 

TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

There  is  an  important  sense  in  which  almost 
every  era  in  thought  is  an  era  of  transition.  For 
since  thought  is  a  living  not  a  lifeless  thing,  and 
life  is  instinct  with  growth  and  change,  every  age, 
unless  it  be  a  dead  one,  must  derive  much  of  its 
inspiration  from  the  past,  and  point  forward  in  its 
turn  to  the  thinking  of  the  age  that  is  to  come. 
Dead  ages,  it  is  true,  the  world  has  known  more 
than  once,  eras  in  the  history  of  mankind  when 
intellectual  life  has  been  paralyzed  or  stagnant. 
But  such  periods  of  immobility  apart,  the  genetic 
growth  of  thought  never  comes  to  a  stop.  The 
germinal  principles  of  each  succeeding  thought- 
movement  in  part  lie  hidden  in  the  conclusions  of 
its  predecessor;  the  full  fruitage  of  each  mature 
development  is  the  precursor  of  a  decline  destined 
to  intervene  before  the  new  creation  "can  spring 
forth   from   the  womb  of  that  which  is  old  and 

1  The  original  draft  of  this  chapter  was  printed  in  The  New 
World,  September,  1895. 

B  1 


2  TRANSITIONAL   ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

outworn."  In  fact,  the  culmination  of  a  move- 
ment itself  marks  the  beginning  of  transition  if 
men  but  continue  to  think  ;  for  its  achievement 
of  success  signifies  that  its  work  has  been  accom- 
plished,  and  the  ingathering  of  the  results  attained, 
their  integration  under  the  form  of  a  system,  must 
ever,  until  thought  shall  at  last  be  perfect,  reveal 
error  and  incompleteness,  and  so  lead  on  to  fresh 
inquiry  and  to  reconstruction.  The  early  ideal  of 
the  individual,  as  of  the  race,  is  the  speedy  attain- 
ment of  the  completed  system  of  truth.  But  those 
who  look  more  deeply  into  the  records  of  man's 
grapple  with  the  problems  of  the  world  discover 
that  human  thought,  like  the  other  works  of  man, 
is  marred  by  human  fmitude,  so  that  growth  be- 
comes the  only  hope  for  knowledge,  even  as  it  is 
the  general  law  of  his  advancing  life.  Not  that 
the  search  after  truth  is  to  be  preferred  to  its 
possession :  Lessing's  famous  saying  was  itself  the 
expression  of  the  spirit  of  a  doubting  age.1  Not 
that  the  law  of  change  implies  the  bankruptcy  of 
intelligence,  for  his  is  but  a  shallow  judgment  who 

i  "  Wenn  Gott  in  seiner  Rechten  alle  "Wahrheit,  und  in  seiner 
Linken  den  einzigen  immer  regen  Trieb  nach  Wahrheit,  obschon 
mit  dem  Zusatze,  mich  immer  und  ewig  zu  irren,  verschlossen 
hielte  und  sprache  zu  mir :  w'ahle  !  Ich  fiele  ihm  mit  Demuth  in 
seine  Linke  und  sagte :  Vater  gieb!  die  reine  Wahrheit  ist  ja 
doch  nur  fur  dich  allein."  —  Eine  Duplik  (1778),  I. 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT  3 

so  misreads  the  history  of  opinion.  But  that  the 
quest  will  be  long  and  earnest,  that  the  law  of 
progress  is  a  law  of  struggle,  that  the  finality  of 
thought  is  as  difficult  to  reach  as  the  perfection 
of  feeling  or  the  ideal  of  conduct,  that  when  these 
or  any  one  of  them  shall  have  been  attained,  the 
millennial  era  will  be  already  here. 

The  law  of  the  development  of  thought,  there- 
fore, is  not  a  simple  one.  There  is  progress,  but 
the  progress  is  not  without  interruption.  The 
thinking  of  one  period  issues  from  the  thinking  of 
its  predecessor,  but  the  labors  of  the  later  age  are  ' 
not  always  an  advance  on  the  work  which  has  , 
preceded.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  more 
complex  phases  of  thought  which  are  commonly 
termed  speculative ;  those  that  result  in  the  broad 
view  of  the  world  and  of  life  which,  since  the 
time  of  the  Greek  sages,  has  borne  the  name  phi- 
losophy, and  those  others,  leading  to  the  deepest 
and  the  highest  things,  which  form  the  bases  of 
theology  and  religion.  Here  the  line  of  progress 
often  returns  upon  itself.  Age  B  does  not  accept  / 
and  build  on  the  principles  the  attainment  of 
which  age  A  had  counted  among  its  greatest 
achievements,  but  bends  its  strength  at  first  to 
the  work  of  destruction.  So  there  comes  a  time  of 
tearing  down  and  clearing  away;  a  time  of  dig- 


4  TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

ging  about  the  foundations  of  belief  and  action; 
an  era  of  scepticism,  as  it  was  formerly  called,  or 
to  employ  the  current  phrase,  a  period  of  agnostic 
thought.  These  ag;es  are  eras  of  transition  in  the 
stricter  moaning  of  the  phrase.  They  are  not, 
in  the  first  instance,  periods  of  growth  so  much 
as  of  the  decay  on  which  growth  is  consequent. 
For  the  most  part,  they  are  characterized  by  con- 
fusion and  dismay  in  the  minds  of  individuals  as 
well  as  in  the  spirit  of  the  age.  The  old  is  shaken 
or  destroyed  ;  the  new  is  not  yet  present  in  its 
strength  and  beauty.  Thus  men  grope  as  those 
who  wander  in  the  dark,  convinced  of  the  error 
of  the  remembered  landmarks  but  not  discerning 
the  way  before  them,  until  at  length  some  genius 
of  deliverance  appears  with  a  new  principle  which 
marks  the  dawning  of  a  happier  time.1 

1  Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  establish  a  more  regular 
alternation  of  constructive  and  critical  eras  than  that  which  is 
argued  in  the  text,  and  to  bring  them  under  more  fixed  and 
regular  laws  (cf.  below,  chap.  II.,  pp.  46-48).  In  part  these  essays 
have  concerned  themselves  with  thought  alone  — "  periods  of 
faith"  and  "periods  of  reason,"  the  succession  of  dogmatism, 
scepticism,  and  criticism  in  philosophical  speculation  (cf.  G.  T. 
Ladd,  Introduction  to  Philosophij,  chap.  VI.)  ;  in  part,  with  culture 
and  civilization  at  large,  e.g.  the  epoques  organiques  and  epoques 
critiques  of  St.  Simon  and  his  school  (cf.  Bazard,  Exposition  de  la 
Dodrine  Saint-Simonienne).  In  many  cases,  again,  especially  in 
the  period  immediately  succeeding  the  Revolutionary  epoch  and 
while  its  disorders  were  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of  thinking  men, 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT  5 

The  present  age  has  often  been  termed  such  a 
period  of  transition.  The  century  which  has  just 
ended,  it  is  said,  especially  its  second  and  third 
quarters,  was  marked  by  a  notable  decline  of 
positive  conviction,  and  the  opening  years  of  the 
century  in  which  we  are  living  have  brought  only 
a  partial  relief  from  doubt.  Science  by  its  mar- 
vellous progress  has  put  philosophy  under  an 
eclipse,  and  suggested  grave  problems  for  the  de- 
fenders of  religious  faith.  Historical  criticism  has 
made  theology  reel  under  its  blows,  until  religion 
has  lost  its  hold  on  cultured  men  and  its  votaries 


the  idea  of  stages  of  positive  and  negative  culture  has  been  com- 
bined with  theories  of  philosophical  or  general  development  cul- 
minating in  the  view  of  thought  or  things  advocated  by  the  given 
author,  or  looking  forward  to  a  final  stage  still  to  be  ushered  in. 
By  some  these  philosophical  constructions  of  history  have  been 
pushed  to  the  extreme  of  reducing  all  the  phenomena  of  develop- 
ment to  fixed  and  unalterable  laws  and  denying  all  possibility  of 
individual  initiative.  J.  G.  Fichte,  Die  Grundziige  des  gegemvartigen 
Zeitalters;  St.  Simon  and  the  St.  Simonians  —  Bazard,  op.  cit.  (cf. 
Ch.  Renouvier,  La  Critique  Philosophique,  lOme  Anne'e,  1881-1882; 
Leslie  Stephen,  The  English  Utilitarians,  vol.  III.,  p.  26 ;  J.  S.  Mill, 
Autobiography,  pp.  161  ff.)  ;  Auguste  Comte,  Cours  de  Philosophie 
Positive,  torn.  IV -VI.,  Systeme  de  Politique  Positive,  torn.  III.-IV. 
(cf.  R.  Flint,  History  of  the  Philosophy  of  History:  Hist,, rial 
Philosophy  in  France,  1894,  pp.  579-615).  It  will  hardly  be  neces- 
sary to  say  to  the  reader  of  the  present  treatise  that  it  differs  from 
theories  of  this  class  much  more  than  it  agrees  with  them.  In 
addition  to  other  points  of  difference,  the  writer  finds  it  impossible 
to  share  in  the  verdict  of  general  condemnation  which  they  often 
pass  on  negative  eras  and  movements. 


6  TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

keep  the  faith  solely  by  the  force  of  their  unen- 
lightened will.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  to  question 
the  complete  validity  of  these  confident  assertions. 
A  caviler  might  urge  that  the  natural  science  of 
our  time  itself  forms  a  striking  example  of  a  fixed, 
not  to  say  a  dogmatic  system  of  belief,1  and  that 
on  the  side  of  religion  phenomena  exist  which  de- 
serve to  be  cited  in  challenge  of  the  conclusion 
that  faith  is  now  involved  in  its  final  decline.  To 
mention  nothing  more,  there  is  a  missionary,  it 
might  almost  be  said  a  crusading,  spirit  abroad  in 
the  church  which  wears  the  aspect  of  a  construc- 
tive not  a  destructive  force,  and  there  is  a  moral- 
izing influence  at  work  in  society  which  carries 
Christian  principles  far  and  wide  into  the  life  of 
mankind,  even  though  certain  traditional  dogmas 
be  shaken  at  the  centre. 

But  when  the  needed  deductions  have  all  been 
made,  it  must  still  be  confessed  that  the  present 
age  is  in  large  measure  a  critical  period  in  the 
history  of  opinion,  as  it  is  also  generally  recognized 
that  similar  crises  have  occurred  from  time  to  time 
since  thought  began.  The  Sophistic  age  in  Greece, 
the  period  succeeding  the  death  of  Aristotle,  when 
the  Greeks  yielded  up  their  political  power  to  the 
Romans  at  the  same  time  that  they  lost  in  intel- 

1  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp.  76-80;  chap.  III.,  passim. 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT  7 

lectual  and  moral  force,  and  later  the  parallel  de- 
cline of  Rome,  the  centuries  of  transition  from  the 
mediaeval  to  the  modern  world,  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury in  Western  Europe,  in  particular  its  closing 
portions,  —  these  occur  at  once  to  those  who  are 
conversant  with  the  records  of  human  thinking, 
while  other  periods  less  familiar  might  be  named 
which  exhibit  the  phenomena  of  transition  with 
less  distinctness  or  in  a  narrower  field.1 

Now  it  is  a  notable  fact,  though  one  not  always 
noted,  that  these  various  eras  of  transition  betray 
a  family  likeness.  Each  of  them  resembles  the 
rest  in  certain  fundamental  characteristics  j  or, 
more  accurately,  there  is  a  type  common  to  them 
all  which  makes  them  similar  in  spite  of  diversi- 
ties of  individual  development.  Not  every  one, 
perhaps  no  single  one,  exhibits  all  the  features  of 
the  class,  at  least  not  all  of  them  in  a  complete 
way.  The  case  is  rather  as  it  is  with  living 
organisms,  the  several  eras  show  the  type-marks 
with  sufficient  distinctness  to  prove  the  oneness 
of  the  laws  which  condition  them,  but  each  may 
have,  as  most  do  have,  peculiarities  which  em- 
phasize the  reality  of  individuation.  Thus  the 
forces   of    revolution    in    the    several   eras   reach 

1  For  an  account  of  a  similar  crisis  in  the  history  of  Israel,  see 
George  Adam  Smith,  The  Book  of  Isaiah,  vol.  I.,  pp.  172-178. 


8  TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

their  maximum  effect  in  different  departments  of 
thought  and  life.  One  age  may  be  busy  with 
questions  concerning  the  state  or  the  organization 
of  society,  and  the  revolutionary  impulse  dis- 
charges along  the  line  of  insurrection,  or  perhaps 
;  of  peaceful  transition  to  a  new  political  form.  A 
second  period  is  given  to  philosophy,  and  when 
the  time  of  disintegration  comes,  men  demand  a 
new  system  to  replace  the  conclusions  which  they 
have  abandoned  or  turn  in  despair  from  the  husks 
offered  by  the  schools  to  matters  of  practical  con- 
cern. Or  some  era  of  settled  theological  convic- 
tion is  disturbed  by  the  appearance  of  opposing 
doctrines,  and  the  war  of  sect  with  sect  goes  on, 
so-called  conservatism  against  so-called  liberalism, 
reformers  in  doctrine  or  practice  confronted  by  the 
defenders  of  old  views  and  by  those  who  seek  to 
cover  the  sore  wounds  of  the  church  rather  than 
probe  them  to  the  bottom  for  a  thorough  healing. 
Just  what  such  a  revolutionary  age  in  science 
might  prove  to  be,  is,  as  yet,  hardly  to  be  deter- 
mined. For  a  transitional  era  in  which  the  forces 
of  change  concerned  science  alone  is  not  a  matter 
of  history,  if  indeed  it  is  possible  for  one  ever  to 
occur.  Often  as  the  variations  in  scientific  theory 
have  wrought  their  momentous  consequences  in 
human  thinking,  it  has  been  their  reflex  effect  on 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT  9 

other  departments  of  thought  —  philosophy,  for 
example,  or  religious  faith  —  that  has  constituted 
the  chief  element  in  their  influence.  Perhaps,  to 
know  what  such  a  scientific  revolution  might 
mean,  we  shall  have  to  wait  until  natural  science, 
as  some  expect  it  will,  shall  have  subdued  all 
things  to  itself,  —  and  then,  it  may  confidently  be 
concluded,  revolutionary  transitions  in  opinion  will 
have  forever  ended.1 

For  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  these  eras  of  tran- 
sition are  abnormal  periods  in  the  intellectual 
development  of  the  race.  They  may  end  in  good, 
it  is  true ;  nay,  in  every  case  so  far  their  outcome 
has  proved  of  value,  at  least  in  a  negative  way. 
Who  shall  say  that  it  was  not  worth  the  misery 
of  the  Sophistic  time  to  gain  the  practical  wisdom 
of  Socrates  and  the  soaring  visions  of  Plato  and 
the  penetrating  genius  which  appears  in  Aristotle's 
work?  who  dare  deny  that  the  Reforming  age, 
with  all  its  intolerance,  its  persecutions,  its  suffer- 
ings, and  its  wars,  was  but  a  small  price  to  pay  for 
the  world's  heritage  of  intellectual  and  religious 
freedom  ?  But  as  in  the  physical  organism,  so  here, 
disease  is  never  normal  or  desirable  for  its  own 
sake,  however  salutary  its  ultimate  results  may 
be.  Disease  brings  weakness,  and  wounds  are 
iCf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  90  ff. 


10        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

followed  by  their  sears ;  and  though  the  life  itself 
escape,  germs  of  evil  often  linger  in  the  system  to 
wreak  disaster  in  later  days.  This,  indeed,  is  the 
case  with  the  modern  age  considered  as  a  whole. 
The  world  is  growing  older,  and  it  has  passed  the 
dangers  of  a  somewhat  stormy  youth.  It  has  also 
gathered  wisdom  in  its  course,  and  its  strength  has 
increased  somewhat  with  its  growth.  But  beneath 
the  surface  there  is  a  serious  temper  in  modern 
thinking  which  shows  that  strength,  when  gained 
at  all,  has  been  won  through  trial  and  conflict. 
We  do  not  now  set  out  to  solve  the  world  at  a 
stroke,  as  men  did  in  the  days  when  thought  was 
young.  There  is  courage  in  place  of  confidence, 
an  undertone  of  sadness  mingled  with  our  fondest 
hopes.  We  still  look  forward  to  the  future,  as  we 
have  a  right  to  do,  for  history  shows  that  there 
always  is  a  future,  no  matter  how  unhappy  the 
promise  of  the  present  may  be;  but  we  are  con- 
scious that  the  road  to  truth  will  have  its  dangers 
and  its  thorns,  we  know  that  man  must  steel  his 
heart  against  the  vicissitudes  of  the  journey  as 
well  as  encourage  himself  with  the  assurance  of 
final  success. 

It  is  evident  from  these  considerations  that 
many  of  the  typical  characteristics  of  eras  of 
transition  must  be  symptoms  of  decadence.     For 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT        11 

although  the  forces  at  work  in  the  development  of 
such  eras  are  often  of  a  creative  rather  than  of  a 
destructive  kind,  their  effect  in  the  first  instance 
is   almost   inevitably   negative.      The   horizon   of 
human  knowledge  is  suddenly  extended,  or  a  new 
discovery  spreads  beyond  the  circles  of  the  learned 
and  rapidly  makes  its  way  into  the  consciousness 
of  the  people :  the  movement  in  essence  is  bene- 
ficial,  but   its    initial    influence    is   revolutionary, 
destructive  of  accepted   theories,  and  at   least   in 
appearance  in  conflict  with  principles  of  practical 
importance  for  which   the  traditional  views  have 
hitherto  furnished  the  basis.     In  no  period  is  this 
law  more  clearly  illustrated   than  in  the  era  of 
the   Renaissance  and   the   Reformation.     Then  a 
new  interest  in  the  classics  springs  up  in  Italy, 
and  a  stream  of  Eastern  scholars  pours  into  the 
West,  bringing  a  fresh  revelation  of  the  literature 
and  life  of  antiquity  to  the  Western  mind:  the 
new  learning  is  destined   to   become   a  powerful 
agent  in  the  emancipation  of  the  intellect  from 
mediaeval  bondage,  but  it  can  accomplish  its  work 
only  by  helping  to  break  down  the  old  scholarship, 
which  for  centuries  has  been  not  only  traditional, 
but  sacred.     Or,  to  cite  a  further  illustration,  be- 
cause of  the  very  fact  that  it  propounds  a  more 
accurate  theory  of  the  order  of  the  universe  and 


12         TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  than  the 
view  which  had  been  accepted  by  the  ancient 
and  the  mediaeval  world,  the  new  astronomy  of 
Copernicus  and  Kepler  and  Galileo  destroys  the 
time-honored  philosophy  of  nature,  and  forces  on 
the  church  the  question  of  reconciling  the  truth 
concerning  the  physical  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
spiritual  heavens.  The  transitional  age,  therefore, 
is  often  a  period  of  mental  awakening,  an  era  of 
Enlightenment  or  Illumination  in  the  proper  mean- 
ins  of  the  term.  But  the  new  intellectual  birth 
is  not  effected  without  an  agony  of  suffering,  and 
the  time  of  its  accomplishment  is  characterized  by 
phenomena  of  declension. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  these  historically,  and  the 
one  which  is  most  uniformly  present,  is  the  breaking 
up  of  philosophical  systems.  So  it  was  in  ancient 
Greece,  so  at  the  Renaissance,  and  so  again,  though 
the  fact  is  sometimes  overlooked  in  considering  the 
rush  of  political  events,  in  Western  Europe  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  J  For  systems  of  philosophy, 
like  the  other  products  of  man's  mind,  grow,  and 
culminate,  and  decline.  It  is  theirs  to  formulate 
the  thought  of  each  age  in  terms  of  ultimate  sym- 
bols. They  interpret  the  store  of  concrete  truth 
which  the  age  has  acquired  as  the  result  of  its 
scientific  activity  ;  they  systematize  the  outcome  of 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT         13 

its  history,  its  literature,  its  religion,  its  art ;  they 
weave  all  the  strands  of  its  thinking  into  one  total 
view  of  the  world,  its  world,  and  of  life,  its  life. 
Hence  as  thought  moves  on  and  the  new  principles 
resist  incorporation  into  the  old  fabric,  men  move 
onward  also,  and  beyond  the  accepted  philoso- 
phemes.  J  At  first  the  age  is  uplifted  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  its  advance,  for  it  is  not  till  later  that  the 
seriousness  of  the  situation  is  forced  home  upon 
men.  In  the  beginning  the}'  talk  glibly  of  going  be- 
yond this  or  that  great  thinker,  of  transcending  the 
limitations  of  systems  previously  in  favor,  just  as  in 
the  world  of  theological  reflection  much  of  noisy 
commonplace  is  heard  about  the  disintegration  of 
outworn  dogmas.  Thus  the  first  transitional  era, 
the  Sophistic  period,  closed  the  pre-Socratic  develop- 
ment. The  Greeks  had  started  out  to  solve  the 
riddles  of  the  universe,  naively  confident  alike  of 
their  powers  of  comprehension  and  of  the  validity 
of  their  results.  Erelong,  however,  it  appeared 
that  equally  pretentious  theories  of  the  world 
yielded  directly  opposite  conclusions.  Thus  men's 
minds  became  bewildered  amid  the  shock  of  war- 
ring systems  and  the  time  of  upheaval  came,  when 
it  was  held  the  highest  wisdom  to  believe  that  all  [ 
truth  is  in  constant  flux.  Then  it  was  said,  "  Man 
is  the  measure  of  all  things,"  and  the  doctrine  of 


14        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

relativity  burned  its  way  into  the  consciousness  of 
the  thinking  world  ;  and  again,  truth  is  individual, 
not  universal,  is  temporary,  not  fixed  or  eternal,  is 
circumstantial,  changing,  for  permanent,  abiding 
reality  there  is  none,  —  and  as  we  listen  to  the 
Sophists  speaking,  we  recognize  anticipations  of  our 
own  unhappy  time.  For  here  we  are  face  to  face 
with  a  type-mark  of  transitional  eras  as  a  class.  Phi- 
losophy attempts  the  hardest  problem  in  the  circle  of 
the  sciences,  —  hence  she  merits  the  greater  honor 
when  she  successfully  accomplishes  any  portion  of 
her  task  ;  but  hence,  also,  comes  her  inevitable  im- 
perfection and  incompleteness  until  she  shall  have 
reached  her  final  goal,  and  hence  by  way  of  corol- 
lary, her  inevitable  rejection  by  shallower  thinkers 
at  the  great  crises  in  her  progress. 

This  first  characteristic  of  transitional  eras  is 
notable,  further,  because  of  its  causal  relation  to  the 
movement  of  transition.  Other  forces  may  come 
into  play  at  different  stages  in  the  process  of  disin- 
tegration ;  the  decline  of  philosophy  forms  one  con- 
dition of  the  coming  of  the  change  in  all.  The 
pre-Socratic  age  ended  in  the  negations  of  the 
Sophists.  After  Aristotle  the  speculation  of  antiq- 
uity was  characterized  by  a  notable  decline  in 
power.  As  mediae valism  tottered  to  its  fall,  men 
more  and  more  abandoned  faith  in  the  metaphysics 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT         15 

of  the  Scholastic  doctors  until  they  reached  the 
evasion  of  the  twofold  truth,  and  the  divorce  of 
theology  and  its  handmaid  was  prepared.  A  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago  it  was  Voltaire  and  Con- 
dillac,  Diderot  and  La  Mettrie  and  Holbach  and 
Rousseau,  that  helped  give  form  and  voice  to  the 
forces  of  upheaval  slumbering  in  the  life  of  France. 
It  need  scarcely  be  added  that  the  agnosticism  of 
the  present  age  is  in  part  a  continuance  of  the  de- 
cline of  philosophy  with  which  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury closed,  in  part  a  reaction  from  the  immoderate 
speculative  pretensions  with  which  the  nineteenth 
century  in  Germany  began.  The  phenomena  here, 
it  is  true,  are  mingled  in  marvellous  complexity. 
Philosophy  is  always  an  effect  as  well  as  a  cause, 
it  appears  in  the  ebb  as  in  the  flow  of  the  transi- 
tional movement ;  but  cause,  one  cause,  it  has  been 
in  these  periods  of  crisis  in  the  past,  and  cause,  one 
cause,  it  will  probably  continue  to  be  as  often  as 
they  shall  from  time  to  time  recur. 

Mutatis  mutandis,  these  conclusions  concerning 
the  influence  of  philosophy  in  eras  of  transition 
hold  good  as  well  of  a  second  form  of  dogmatic 
opinion,  which  crystallizes  in  the  principles  of 
religion  and  theology.  In  some  instances  the 
decline  of  religious  belief  precedes  the  break-up 
in  philosophy,  the  accepted   doctrines  of   religion 


16        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

being   gradually  outgrown   until   the    disturbance 
passes   over   to   the    metaphysical   positions  with 
which  the  traditional  faith  has  been  allied  or  rein- 
forces nascent  doubt  in  relation  to  the  systems  of 
the  schools.     This  was  the   case  in  Greece  in  the 
fifth  century  before  the  Christian  era,  when  grow- 
ing dissatisfaction  with  the  national  faith,  conse- 
quent  upon  the  development  of  culture,  proved  a 
potent  contributory  cause  in  the  genesis  of  Sophism. 
Sometimes  a  change  in  the  dominant  type  of  specu- 
lative thinking  precipitates  disaster  in  the  region  of 
theological  reflection.     Such  was  the  effect  of  the 
progress  of  science  and  the  development  of  a  new 
philosophy  upon  religion  and  theology  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  in  Western  Europe.     In  neither  of 
these  cases,  however,  is  the  example  pure,  for  both 
approximate  —  the  first  perhaps  in  less,  the  second 
to   a   more   marked,  degree  —  the  more  frequent 
type,   wThich    shows   philosophy   and   theology  so 
mingled  in  the  time  of  their  authority  and  so  inti- 
mately associated  in  their  resistance  to  new  princi- 
ples   pressing    for    acceptance    that    it    becomes 
impossible  to  draw  sharp  lines  of   distinction  be- 
tween their  spheres  of   influence  as  they  act  and 
react  in  the  development  of  opinion.     The  classical 
illustration  of  this  commoner  type  is  found  in  the 
transition  from  the  mediaeval  to  the  modern  world. 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IX   THOUGHT         17 

For  dissatisfaction  with  the  philosophical  and  theo- 
logical doctrines  of  the  church,  as  well  as  revolt 
from  the  mingled  tyranny  and  corruption  of  the 
Papal  body,  were  among  the  tap-roots  of  that 
growth  whose  fruitage  is  the  modern  spirit.  The 
Scholastic  philosophy,  centred  about  theological 
dogma,  was  by  its  inherent  weakness  preparing  the 
way  for  its  own  rejection  at  the  same  time  that  the 
religiously  disposed  among  the  later  medioevals 
were  growing  weary  of  the  monstrosities  of  the 
ecclesiastical  life  and  turning  against  Mother 
Church.  So  the  Reformation  in  matters  spiritual 
was  furthered  by  the  Renaissance  in  the  matters  of 
the  intellectual  life.  The  humanist  wrought  for  a 
time  as  a  friend  and  coadjutor  of  the  reformer ;  the 
new  science,  in  its  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of 
thought,  found  its  counterpart  in  the  rebellion 
against  the  tyranny  over  the  heart ;  the  refusal  to 
submit  to  authority  in  questions  purely  philosophi- 
cal reinforced,  and  was  reinforced  by,  the  doctrine 
of  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  regard  to 
questions  of  faith. 

The  outcome  of  the  twofold  process  of  disinte- 
gration is  a  failure  alike  of  philosophical  and  of 
religious  conviction.  As  the  transitional  move- 
ment continues  to  develop,  the  endeavors  at  reform, 
which  at  the  outset  were  intended  only  to  do  away 


18        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

with  principles  that  in  the  course  of  time  had  be- 
come unsatisfactory,  result  in  a  general  ruin.  The 
negation  of  the  established  metaphysic  leaves  men 
without  a  basis  for  thought  and  action,  the  boasted 
freedom  from  dogmatic  bias  proves  a  void  of  reli- 
gious indecision.  Hence  a  demand  arises  for  new 
foundations  for  belief  and  conduct.  The  old  trust 
in  systematic  reflection  is,  for  the  time  at  least,  de- 
stroyed, and  the  need  for  principles  of  practice 
makes  itself  acutely  felt;  therefore  the  time-hon- 
ored problems  of  metaphysics  and  theology  are 
thrust  into  the  background,  while  others  of  more 
immediate  and  vital  moment  engage  the  attention 
of  thoughtful  minds.  Questions  about  the  gods 
and  the  world  to  come,  questions  about  man's 
nature  and  his  origin,  questions  about  the  soul  and 
its  immortal  destiny,  now  appeal  to  the  interest  of 
mankind  more  than  general  theories  of  the  uni- 
verse, or  the  abstruser  articles  of  dogmatic  the- 
ology. In  so  far  as  the  age  is  disposed  to  reflect 
at  all  upon  the  deeper  issues,  the  philosophy  of 
religion  becomes  a  favorite  subject  of  inquiry.  Not 
only  do  the  defenders  of  the  traditional  faith  rally 
to  the  defence  of  their  principles  endangered  by 
the  tendencies  of  the  time,  but  the  advocates  of 
liberal  opinions  make  it  a  part  of  their  task  to 
propose  substitutes  for  the  objects  of  their  attacks. 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT         19 

So  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  conservative 
element  in  the  negative  party  contended  for  God 
and  freedom  and  immortality  as  the  legitimate 
conclusions  of  rational  theology,  even  though  faith 
in  Revelation  had  been  destroyed;  in  the  nine- 
teenth, positivism  summoned  the  faithful  to  the 
worship  of  humanity,  and  agnosticism  proposed 
the  cult  of  the  Unknowable  as  fitted  to  console 
men  for  its  lack  of  content  by  the  impregnability 
of  its  foundation  in  demonstrable  truth. 

Moreover,  and  very  markedly,  the  movement  I 
involves  the  principles  of  morals  as  well  as  reli- 
gious faith.  This  in  fact  is  the  point  at  which 
the  issues  weigh  most  heavily  upon  the  hearts  of 
thoughtful  men.  The  philosophy  of  an  age  is  at 
most  but  half-conscious  in  the  minds  of  the  people ; 
even  should  it  be  proved  untenable,  even  if  religion 
should  in  measure  fail,  the  earnest  soul  still  can 
gird  itself  to  do  the  right.  But  when  the  forces 
of  disintegration  make  their  way  into  the  sphere 
of  conduct,  the  world  grows  desolate  indeed.  As 
good  men  waver,  striving  amid  the  breakdown  of 
the  old  foundations  to  discover  some  tenable  basis 
for  the  moral  law,  as  bad  men  welcome  relief  from 
the  restraints  on  individual  life  or  ply  their  arts  to 
the  detriment  of  public  virtue  and  the  weakening 
of  the  social  health,  the  strain  becomes  unendur- 


20        TRANSITIONAL    ERAS    IN   THOUGHT 

able  Eor  those  who  are  seeking  solutions  for  the 
problems  of  the  time.  Here,  therefore,  belief 
makes  its  final  stand;  here  the  sceptic  or  agnostic 
meets  the  stoutest  resistance  to  his  views;  here 
the  movements  of  recoil  and  recuperation  often 
begin  their  beneficent  work;  here,  in  the  mean- 
while, a  remnant  of  positive  thinking  lingers, 
thouerh  all  else  be  given  over  to  confusion  and  de- 
st  ruction.  Thus  it  is  explained  that  many  of  the 
classical  systems  of  ethics  have  had  their  origin  in 
ages  of  transition.  In  declining  antiquity,  the  Stoics 
and  the  Epicureans  came  forward  with  their  doc- 
trines when  the  influence  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  wras 
waning  and  the  Christian  ethic  had  not  yet  dawned 
upon  the  world.  In  the  stormy  eighteenth  century, 
the  leading  nations  of  thinking  Europe  —  Britain 
and  France  and  Germany  —  busied  themselves  in 
greater  or  less  degree  with  ethical  speculations.  So 
once  more  in  our  later  age,  and  from  out  the  very 
ranks  of  the  empirical  and  agnostic  schools,  have 
come  Bentham  and  Mill  in  the  past,  Spencer  and 
Stephen  and  their  many  followers  in  the  present, 
seeking  to  prevent  the  disaster  which  may  be  ex- 
pected to  follow  "  the  decay  and  death  of  a  regulative 
system  no  longer  fit,  before  another  and  fitter  regu- 
lative system  has  grown  up  to  replace  it."  1 

1  Herbert  Spencer,  Principles  of  Ethics,  Preface  to  Part  I. 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IX   THOUGHT        21 

The  truth  of  Mr.  Spencer's  position  is  indepen- 
dent of  the  particular  movement  to  which  his 
words  immediately  refer.  Whether  the  principles 
of  evolutionary  ethics  are,  or  are  not,  superior  to 
the  regulative  system  which  they  are  intended  to 
supplant,  it  is  beyond  question  that  the  possibility 
of  practical  disaster  lurks  in  the  background  of  all 
great  changes  in  fundamental  moral  convictions. 
If  proof  of  the  proposition  were  needed,  it  would 
be  sufficient  to  glance  at  the  phenomena  of  moral 
degeneracy  by  which  the  various  transitional  eras 
have  been  marked :  the  decay  of  the  Athenian 
spirit  in  the  time  of  the  Sophists,  the  moral  corrup- 
tion of  declining  Greece  and  Rome,  the  miserable 
issues  of  medieval  Christianity,  the  neo-paganism, 
polite  and  corrupt  in  one,  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance, the  excesses  of  the  Revolutionary  epoch,  the 
sordid  materialization  of  poverty  and  the  luxurious 
despiritualization  of  riches  under  the  conditions  of 
life  in  the  present  age.  Nevertheless,  it  is  true  that  i 
such  developments  are  not  the  result  of  the  intel- ' 
lectual  ferment  alone.  In  part  they  depend  upon 
the  weakening  of  regulative  principles  which  the 
confusion  in  reflective  thinking  inevitably  occa- 
sions ;  in  part  they  are  due  to  an  enfeeblement  of 
conscience  and  the  moral  will,  which  is  comparable 
to  the  failure  of  intellectual  effort,  and  like  this. 


22        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

also,  indicative  of  the  decay  under  which  the  spirit 
of  the  age  is  suffering.  The  iniquities  of  the  later 
pagan  culture,  the  vice  of  the  Renaissance,  the 
blood-madness  of  the  Terror,  cannot  be  entirely 
accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  accepted  principles 
in  restraint  of  conduct  had  been  suddenly  called 
in  question,  nor  wholly  ascribed  to  the  liberation 
of  passion  consequent  upon  the  destruction  of  the 
traditional  foundations  of  the  moral  law.  On  the 
contrary,  these  outbreaks  of  the  worst  passions  of 
which  the  human  heart  is  capable  are  symptoms 
and  effects  of  the  general  degeneracy,  as  well  as 
collateral  results  of  the  decline  of  systematic  belief. 
The  disorder  preying  upon  the  vitality  of  the  tran- 
sitional age  is  at  once  theoretical  and  practical, 
intellectual  and  moral.  It  is  a  disease  which  saps 
the  vigor  of  the  heart  and  conscience  at  the  same 
time  that  it  impairs  the  activity  of  thought.  There- 
fore its  causes  must  be  looked  for  in  the  region  of 
ethical  as  well  as  in  the  sphere  of  intellectual  de- 
velopment, and  thought  and  action  must  cooperate 
in  the  endeavor  to  effect  a  cure.  Earnest  thinkers 
who  seek  to  frame  more  tenable  moral  systems  to 
take  the  place  of  older  doctrines  which  have  per- 
ished amid  the  tumults  of  the  times,  make  effectual 
contribution  to  the  means  of  recovery ;  but  a  refor- 
mation of  practice  is  also  indispensable,  and  this 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT        23 

no   system  of  morals,   however  lofty  or  however 
well  founded  it  may  be,  is  able  to  produce  of  itself  I 
alone. 

This  conclusion  suggests  certain  facts  concern- 
ing eras  of  transition  which  the  discussion  hitherto 
has  not  brought  into  view.  In  the  first  place,  it 
reveals  the  great  complexity  of  the  phenomena 
involved.  As  the  inquiry  proceeds  from  the  con- 
fusion in  abstract  o_pinion  to  the  disturbance  .in. 
the  sphere  of  conduct,  it  leaves  behind  the  factors 
which  are  predominantly  causal  and  comes  on 
others  which  may  more  accurately  be  described 
as  produced  effects.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed, 
indeed,  that  any  one  element  in  the  total  pro- 
cess is  exclusively  cause  or  effect :  the  several 
phases  of  the  transitional  movement  are  too 
closely  connected  among  themselves  for  such 
an  assumption  ever  to  be  true.  But  as  thought 
passes  the  series  in  review,  the  balance  of  ante- 
cedence and  sequence  alters,  and  phenomena 
present  themselves  whose  position  in  the  one 
class  or  the  other  is  unstable,  or  which  tend 
even  to  come  out  from  the  category  of  produc- 
ing causes  altogether  and  to  take  their  place 
among  the  resulting  effects. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  evident  that  the  forces 
at  work  —  and  the   results  of  their  action  —  are 


24        TRANSITIONAL    ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

not  to  be  found  in  thought  alone,  but  in  the 
in ti mate  alliance  of  thought  and  life.  Of  this 
a  striking  example  is  furnished  by  the  relation 
of  movements  in  opinion  to  the  vicissitudes  of 
political  and  civil  history.  For  it  is  an  abnormal 
condition  of  a  Hairs  —  if  it  ever  literally  exists  — 
w  In  11  the  life  of  an  age  plays  no  part  in  the  for- 
mation of  opinion,  or  the  spirit  of  the  time  fails 
to  affect  the  course  of  political  and  social  develop- 
ment ;  and  in  the  critical  eras  these  tendencies 
have  never  been  separated.  As  remarked  above, 
it  wag_  reflective  thought  that  helped  bring;  to  a 
focus  tin-  disturbing  forces  in  eighteenth-century 
France  till  they  surged  forth  in  the  Revolution 
and  the  Terror,  but  the  philosojjhes  themselves 
were  phenomena  of  rebellion  as  really  as  the 
starving  peasants  or  the  imbruted  populace  of 
the  capital,  whose  leaders  burned  with  passion 
for  the  cult  of  reason  and  the  rights  of  man. 
What,  for  instance,  was  the  character  of  the 
coryphaeus  of  the  movement  in  its  earlier 
phases  ?  Was  Voltaire  merely  a  sneering  Deist, 
a  cynical,  conceited  litterateur  who  misused  his 
genius  for  the  pleasure  of  destruction  and  the 
malicious  delight  which  his  gibes  afforded  him, 
or  was  it  legitimate  revolt  against  the  foulness 
in   the    head    and   in   the   members   of   the  body 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT        25 

politic  and  the  body  ecclesiastical  in  one  that 
found  an  outlet  in  his  attacks  upon  the  estab- 
lished order?  And  what  was  the  special  secret 
of  the  success  of  Diderot  and  his  fellow-editors 
of  the  great  Encyclopaedia  in  spreading  their 
doctrines  among  the  people  of  France,  if  not  the 
adaptation  of  the  work  to  the  needs  of  French 
society  at  the  time  ? *  And  how  would  Rous- 
seau's extravagant  theories  of  the  social  order 
have  accomplished  their  revolutionary  work,  had 
they  made  their  appearance  in  an  age  free  from 
physical  distress,  from  inequitable  class  distinc- 
tions, from  tyrannical  oppression,  from  bitter 
social  need?  The  case  is  similar  with  other  eras 
of  transition.  In  early  Greece  the  disputes  of 
Eleatic  and  Heracleitan,  of  Atomistic  materialist 
and  Anaxagorean  defender  of  spirit  were  not  the 
only  causes  that  precipitated  the  Sophistic  move- 
ment, To  understand  Sophism,  factors  must  also 
be  taken  into  account  other  than  the  abstract  dis- 
cussions of  the  preceding  age, —  facts  of  national 
growth  and  development,  of  constitutional  and 
social  change  in  Athens,  of  civil  war  with  Sparta, 
and  the  like.2  The  final  decline  of  Greek  think- 
ing was  contemporaneous  with  the  loss  of  politi- 

1  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp-  72-7:5. 

2  Cf.  E.  Zeller,  Pre-Socratic  Philosophy,  vol.  II.,  pp.  394-407. 


26        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

cal  power;  the  decay  of  the  Roman  spirit  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  successful  inroads  of  the 
northern  invaders;  the  period  of  transition  from 
mediaeval  to  modern  Europe  and  the  epoch  of 
the  Revolution  were  eras  at  once  of  political 
and  of  spiritual  change.  The  fact  is  much  the 
same  in  the  life  of  nations  as  it  is  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  individual  man  :  when  a  system  of 
thought  is  adopted  by  a  nation  or  an  age,  it  is 
because  it  expresses  and  exemplifies  the  spirit 
of  those  by  whom  it  is  accepted.  The  turning- 
points  of  history,  in  particular,  are  times  when 
men's  hearts  are  stirred,  when  the  blood  courses 
swift  and  hot  in  their  veins,  as  they  rise  against 
the  forms  and  formulas  in  which  hitherto  the 
national  life  has  found  its  crystallized  expression ; 
and  so  the  rebellion  in  their  hearts  and  deeds 
becomes  the  counterpart  of  the  revolution  in 
their  reasoned  conclusions. 

Exhaustive  consideration  of  the  significance  of 
practical  movements  in  transitional  eras  is  pre- 
cluded by  the  limits  of  this  inquiry,  which  more 
particularly  concerns  itself  with  the  development 
of  opinion.  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  as  a  fur- 
ther characteristic  feature  of  such  critical  periods, 
that  the  type  of  speculation  then  in  vogue  and 
the  favored  principles  of  action  alike  supply  mate- 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT        27 

rial  for  a  remarkable  propagandist  activity.  The 
strenuousness  with  which  the  propagandism  is 
carried  on,  varies  with  the  spirit  of  the  age.  In 
eras  when  thought  is  so  predominantly  negative 
that  a  general  paralysis  of  reflection  is  the  note 
of  the  time,  the  endeavor  to  extend  the  influence 
of  destructive  principles  itself  assumes  a  languid 
form.  In  eras,  on  the  contrary,  when  destruc-  *1 
tion  is  motived  by  the  greatness  of  the  work  it 
is  set  to  accomplish,  —  when  some  time-honored 
system  has  outlived  its  power,  so  that  the  doing 
away  with  principles  formerly  of  value  becomes  the 
indispensable  condition  of  progress,  or  when  some 
corrupt  development,  deep  seated  in  the  spiritual 
organism,  needs  to  be  excised,  —  the  negative 
movement  may  take  on  the  aspect  of  a  crusade.^ 
Most  important  of  all,  when  justifiable  negation 
is  allied  with  positive  movements  valid  in  them- 
selves or  in  the  eyes  of  their  defenders,  the  im- 
pulse to  spread  abroad  the  liberating  doctrine 
becomes  a  sacred  mission  for  those  who  sympa- 
thize with  the  tendencies  of  the  time.  These 
phenomena,  moreover,  explain  the  devotion  of 
the  "  Enlightened "  to  the  instruction  of  classes 
of  the  people  usually  considered  impervious  to 
appeals  in  behalf  of  abstract  principles.  On  the 
one  side,  there   is   the   ardent  desire  to  increase 


28        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

the  sway  of  the  new  gospel  by  extending  its  bene- 
fits to  the  many  who  have  suffered  under  the 
pressure  of  traditional  dogmas,  though  it  may 
very  well  be  that  they  have  been  unconscious  of 
the  sources  whence  their  misery  has  sprung :  on 
the  other,  there  is  the  preparation,  also,  it  may 
be,  but  imperfectly  realized,  for  a  change  in  the 
spiritual  basis  of  life  which  has  been  made  as 
the  power  and  the  value  of  principles,  once 
unquestionably  accepted,  have  begun  to  diminish. 
Thus  the  negative  party  is  led  to  take  up  an  edu- 
cational task.  Through  the  teaching  of  the 
schools  it  will  gradually  transform  the  control- 
ling principles  of  belief  and  action;  through  the 
medium  of  literature  or  the  influence  of  the  spoken 
word  it  will  gain  a  hearing  for  conclusions  so  satis- 
factory in  the  estimation  of  those  to  whom  they 
have  so  far  been  communicated  that  they  may 
be  expected  to  exert  a  regenerating  influence  on 
the  masses  of  the  people  as  well. 

The  success  of  this  endeavor  marks  the  culmi- 
nation of  the  transitional  movement.  When  it  has 
made  its  conclusions  part  of  the  common  stock  of 
thought,  in  particular,  when  it  has  so  affected  the 
spirit  of  the  age  that  they  not  only  gain  acceptance 
but  are  transmuted  into  action,  then  its  wprk  is 
done.     By  way  of  destruction  it  has  accomplished 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT        29 

the  overthrow  of  the  systems  against  which  its  at- 
tack was  aimed;  to  constructive  or  reconstructive 
effort  it  has  contributed  all  the  assistance  which  it 
is  in  any  way  able  to  supply.  Erelong,  as  in  the 
case  of  other  movements  in  thought,  it  is  to  be 
expected  that  the  time  of  its  culmination  will  be 
succeeded  by  the  beginning  of  its  decline.  Secure 
in  their  confident  belief  in  the  validity  of  their  con- 
clusions, its  leaders  may  ignore  the  fact  that  their 
authority  will  soon  begin  to  wane.  Nevertheless, 
it  will  be  vain  for  them  to  hope  to  escape  the  influ- 
ence of  the  forces  which  but  now  they  invoked  in 
the  conflict  with  their  fallen  foes.  The  laws  of 
growth  and  of  decay  will  be  found  to  apply  to  neg- 
ative as  to  positive  speculation.  The  era  of  transi- 
tion must  itself  pass  away.1 

Careful  examination  will  show,  also,  that  the 
regular  or  lawful  character  of  transitional  eras 
which  was  premised  at  the  outset  of  the  inquiry 
appears  in  their  closing  phases,  as  well  as  in  the 
beginnings  and  the  development  of  the  transitional 
movement.  The  earliest  indication  of  the  decline 
of  negative  reflection  is  furnished  by  the  appearance 
of  dissatisfaction  with  the  results  of  unbelief :  dis- 
satisfaction or  disappointment,  it  is  important  to 
note,  with  the  outcome  of  theoretical  negation  as 
1  Cf.  chap.  711. 


30        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

well  as  with  the  results  of  scepticism  in  the  sphere 
of  practice.  For  at  this  point  in  the  discussion  it 
is  necessary  to  criticize  an  erroneous  view  which, 
has  loug  obscured  the  truth,  and  the  exposure  of 
which  is  indispensable  in  order  to  a  just  estimation 
of  the  principles  involved.  It  is  often  assumed, 
especially  at  the  commencement  of  sceptical  periods, 
that  the  conclusions  of  destructive  thinking  are  ade- 
quate to  meet  the  needs  both  of  the  individual  mind 
and  of  society.1  Longer  experience  proves  the  con- 
viction as  delusive  in  regard  to  the  matters  of  the 
intellect,  considered  in  its  strictly  theoretical  aspect, 
as  it  has  already  been  found  to  be  in  regard  to  the 
principles  of  practical  life.2  Under  the  stress  of 
intellectual  struggle,  it  has  been  shown  in  the 
course  of  mental  development  that  human  thinking 
cannot  be  confined  within  the  limits  which  scepti- 
cism assigns  to  it.  The  fact,  indeed,  has  been 
demonstrated  again  and  again  and  again  in  every 
such  era  as  those  which  are  now  under  considera- 
tion. The  Sophists  deny  all  settled  truth,  and 
within  two  generations  Socrates  and  Plato  and 
Aristotle  devote  their  genius  to  the  refutation  of 
the  charge.  The  heathen  world  perishes  amid  dis- 
illusion and  corruption,  but  Christianity  conducts 
man  a  long  stage   forward  in  his  intellectual  as 

1  Cf.  above,  pp.  12-13.  2  Cf.  above,  pp.  17-23. 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT        31 

in  his  spiritual  progress.  Nominalism  brings  medi- 
aeval philosophy  to  a  close,  despair  on  the  one  side, 
exultant  negation  on  the  other — Bacon  and  Hobbes, 
Descartes  and  Spinoza  start  the  modern  mind  on  a 
new  quest  after  fundamental  truth.  So,  also,  a 
century  and  a  quarter  ago,  Hume  was  followed  by 
Reid  and  Kant,  Kant  in  turn  by  the  Idealistic 
school,  not  now  to  enlarge  upon  the  reaction  from 
the  Deism  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  broader  and 
more  adequate  philosophies  of  religion ;  while  at 
the  present  time,  after  another  period  of  miserable 
speculative  wandering,  thoughtful  men  are  taking 
up  once  more  the  work  of  positive  reflection. 
Thinkers  there  are  still  who  celebrate  the  inherent 
value  of  denial1;  but  experience  joins  with  the 
critical  analysis  of  human  faculty  to  convince  those 
who  are  more  versed  in  the  annals  of  the  mind  that, 
if  the  results  of  sceptical  thinking  should  ever  be 
proven  the  only  tenable  conclusions,  the  intellect 

1  These  are  to  be  found  chiefly  among  the  "  agnostics."  Cf. 
"  The  Declaration  of  the  Free "  by  the  late  Robert  G.  Ingersoll, 
printed  in  the  New  York  Herald  for  July  26,  1899.  A  single  stanza 
may  be  quoted  :  — 

"  The  simple  truth  is  what  we  ask, 

Not  the  ideal ; 
We've  set  ourselves  the  noble  task 

To  find  the  real. 
If  all  there  is  is  naught  but  dross, 
We  want  to  know  and  bear  our  loss." 


32        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

would  be  shorn  of  its  glory  and  its  crown.  For 
they  perceive  that  man  will  think,  despite  all 
efforts  which  may  be  made  to  check  his  labor  on 
the  great  recurrent  problems  of  the  ages;  and, 
further,  that  this  ingrained  tendency  itself  is  evi- 
dence that  thought  is  more  than  a  mere  sport  of 
reason,  as  it  is  sometimes  asserted  to  be,  more  than 
a  malady  of  mind  in  an  undeveloped  state. 

But  the  disappointment  which  scepticism  breeds 
is  never  so  acute  in  the  intellectual  as  it  is  in  the 
moral  sphere.  The  failure  of  knowledge  is  bitter 
—  the  decay  of  ethical  principles  and  the  eclipse  of 
faith  produce  deeper  despondency  still  in  the  souls 
of  earnest  men.  Practical  motives  therefore  unite 
with  the  interests  of  theoretical  intelligence  to 
create  a  demand  for  new  attacks  upon  the  problems 
of  the  mind,  or  to  call  forth  efforts  to  escape  the 
pressure  of  the  deeper  issues  by  securing  the  bene- 
fits which  would  result  from  their  complete  decision 
without  risking  the  difficulties  and  dangers  involved 
in  attempts  directly  to  resolve  them.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  speculative  confidence,  for  instance,  origi- 
nality of  thought  declines  and  men  grasp  restlessly 
at  the  fragments  of  older  doctrines  that  have  sur- 
vived the  general  ruin.  Thus  when  the  movement 
of  transition  has  reached  the  turning-point,  or  the 
tide  is  a  little  past  the  flood,  one  typical  develop- 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT        33 

ment  is  an  eclectic  form  of  thought,  which  strives 
to  gain  a  foothold  by  combining  elements  selected 
from  the  various  systems  that  have  found  favor 
with  mankind.  In  the  opinion  of  the  members  of 
the  eclectic  school,  new  constructive  reflection  on 
the  questions  of  the  universe  is  manifestly  vain. 
All  the  possible  answers  have  already  been  worked 
out  by  the  master-thinkers  of  the  ages ;  and  since 
the  acceptance  of  extreme  principles,  on  the  one 
side  or  the  other,  has  merely  served  to  lead  the 
mind  astray,  —  the  further  into  error,  indeed,  the 
more  consecutive  the  reasoning  from  the  imperfect 
premises  adopted,  —  the  only  hopeful  plan  remain- 
ing is  to  follow  a  middle  course.  No  one  solution 
of  the  universe  taken  by  itself  is  true,  no  single 
system  is  adequate  to  the  explanation  of  the  great 
world  about  us.  Let  us  make  a  combination,  then, 
of  all  that  is  good  in  all  the  thinking  of  the  ages 
past ;  especially  let  us  preserve  whatever  in  each 
system  has  made  for  the  support  of  religious  faith 
and  the  promotion  of  right  conduct  among  mankind. 
Thus  we  shall  attain  the  maximum  of  truth  which 
it  is  possible  for  finite  intelligence  to  reach,  and  at 
the  same  time  secure  a  firm  foundation  for  those 
principles  of  action  which  to  men  of  good  will  are 
of  greater  value  than  any  matters  of  purely  intel- 
lectual concern. 


34         TKANSITIONAL   EKAS   IN   THOUGHT 

To  many  minds  eclecticism  of  this  type  offers  an 
attractive  programme ;  and  a  certain  amount  of 
evidence  in  its  support  may  be  derived  from  the 
impracticability  of  framing  a  complete  and  final 
system  of  the  world.  It  is  undeniable,  however, 
that  in  the  history  of  transitional  eras  its  appeals 
have  found  a  welcome  chiefly  from  thinkers  who 
must  be  classed  with  the  less  rather  than  with  the 
more  profound  spirits,  even  of  their  own  distracted 
times.  In  antiquity  the  barrenness  of  speculative 
thought  among  the  Romans  and  their  dependence 
upon  the  philosophy  of  Greece  may  be  attributed 
in  part  to  the  eclectic  tendencies  of  a  decadent  age, 
as  well  as  to  the  racial  lack  of  speculative  endow- 
ment ;  in  modern  times  the  shallow  syncretism  of 
the  German  Illumination  and  the  work  of  the 
Eclectic  school  in  France,  under  the  leadership  of 
Cousin,  fail  to  suggest  that  the  eclectic  principle 
possesses  any  deep  or  enduring  value.  And  this,  the 
witness  of  history,  coincides  with  the  verdict  of  crit- 
ical reflection,  which,  as  it  is  easy  to  perceive,  rests 
on  considerations  of  unquestionable  force.  For  the 
eclectic,  at  least  the  eclectic  of  the  pure  type,  at- 
tempts a  task  which  is  impossible  in  itself,  and 
incapable  even  of  partial  accomplishment  without 
the  abandonment  of  the  formal  principle  of  the 
undertaking.     To   weld   all  the    salient   doctrines 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN    THOUGHT         35 

of  the  various  schools  into  one  concordant  whole 
is  obviously  impossible,  if  the  project  is  con- 
ceived in  any  serious  way,  however  valuable 
the  temporary  service  of  eclecticism  may  be  in 
minimizing  the  antagonism  of  opposing  prin- 
ciples imtil  they  can  be  thought  through  to 
their  ultimate  adjustment.  And  the  endeavor  in 
any  degree  to  combine  the  elements  which  the 
eclectic  selects  from  the  s}7stems  wrhich  he  passes 
in  review  must  either  degenerate  into  patchwork, 
or  proceed  upon  a  reasonable  plan.  If  he  adopts 
the  former  of  these  alternatives,  his  labor  is  con- 
demned from  the  beginning ;  if  the  latter,  he  ceases 
pro  tanto  to  be  an  eclectic  and  himself  becomes  a 
thinker  on  the  problems  of  his  age.  It  is  intelli- 
gible, therefore,  that  the  wxork  of  the  eclectic  school 
has  always  proved  an  expedient  rather  than  a 
systematic  movement,  a  type  of  thought  of  tem- 
porary significance  merely,  untenable  for  those  who 
resolutely  face  the  questions  of  the  world. 

A  second  product  of  reflection  in  the  final  stage 
of  transitional  eras  is  at  once  less  transient  and 
more  noble.  The  progress  of  destructive  criticism, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  is  from  the  region  of 
theoretical  discussion  to  the  sphere  of  conduct; 
and  conversely,  as  has  also  been  suggested,  the 
wrork  of  reconstruction  often  begins  at  the  point 


3G        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

where  the  forces  of  disintegration  lose  their  effect. 
The  head  has  been  found  impotent  to  solve  the 
riddles  of  the  world  and  life;  men  now  begin  to 
hope  that  a  working  system  can  be  discovered 
through  the  instincts  of  the  heart.  Reason  has 
failed  in  its  endeavor  to  solve  the  problems  which 
mankind  most  of  all  desires  to  understand.  Is  it 
not  rational  therefore  to  turn  to  the  feelings  and 
the  conscience,  which  go  deeper  down  toward  the 
sources  whence  life  and  personality  proceed  than 
any  cold  abstractions  can  penetrate  ?  Surely  there 
must  be  enough  of  natural  light  vouchsafed  man 
to  guide  his  conduct  in  this  world  and  enough  of 
spiritual  insight  to  yield  him  hints  about  the  life 
which  is  to  come.  So  in  periods  of  intellectual 
failure  or  despair,  men  recoil  from  the  philosophy 
of  reason  to  the  philosophy  of  faith,  or  the  philoso- 
phy of  feeling,  or  the  philosophy  of  instinct  —  in 
a  word,  to  the  philosophy  of  the  heart.  Medieval- 
ism, half  emancipated  from  ecclesiastical  domina- 
tion, develops  the  evasion  of  the  twofold  truth,  but 
puts  forth  also  some  of  its  fairest  blossoms,  ere  it 
dies,  in  the  thinking  of  the  mystics.  Similar 
movements  meet  the  historian  of  opinion  when 
the  centuries  of  transition  proper  are  passed  and 
the  early  stress  of  modern  thought  begins  to 
make   itself   felt.      At   this    period    thinkers   like 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IX  THOUGHT        37 

Bayle1  mingle  scepticism  and  Christian  belief  in  so 
strange  proportions  that  it  remains  a  question 
whether  they  should  be  classed  as  hypocritical  scep- 
tics or  cynical  believers ;  while,  with  a  more  reverent 
spirit,  Pascal2  turns  away  from  reason  to  base 
£  religion  and  morals  upon  feeling,  belief,  or  instinct. 
But  it  is  especially  toward  the  close  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  after  the  development  of  Deism  and 
the  philosophy  of  the  Revolution,  that  the  appeal 
to  faith  gains  an  important  place  in  modern  thought. 
In  France  the  pre-Revolutionary  movement  cul- 
minates in  the  sentimental  deism  of  Rousseau's 
Savoyard  Vicar.3  In  Germany  Jacobi,  the  chief  of 
the  thinkers  to  whom  the  name  faith-philosopher 
most  specifically  applies,  relies  on  the  witness  of 
faith  as  a  defence  against  the  pantheistic  issue 
of  Spinoza's  rationalism,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  outcome  of  Kant's  critical  speculation,  on 
the  other.4  Meantime  "from  Konigsberg  itself 
rings  out"  a  clearer  if  a  colder  note,  as  Kant  en- 
deavors to  find  in  "  practical  reason  "  the  warrant 
for  the  postulates  of  moral  and  spiritual  life  which 

1  Cf.   R.  Falckenberg,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  (English 
translation  by  the  author  of  the  present  treatise),  pp.  149-152. 

2  Pense'es,  passim ;  cf .  Falckenberg,  ibid.,  pp.  143-144. 
8  Zmile,  IV. 

4  Besides  F.  H.  Jacobi,  the  leaders  of  the  Glauhensphilosophie 
■were  Hamann  and  Herder.     Cf.  Falckenberg,  ibid.,  pp.  310-314. 


38        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

'•pure  reason"  had  denied  him;  while,  later, 
Schleiermacher  proposes  to  ground  religion  in  "the 
feeling  of  absolute  dependence "  and  Christian 
experience,  and  doctrines  of  a  less  earnest  type 
appear  among  the  positions  advocated  by  other 
members  of  the  Romantic  school. 

In  the  century  and  more  which  lias  elapsed  since 
the  time  of  Kant  the  tendency  in  question  has 
made  further  progress.  Fostered  by  the  reaction 
from  pure  intellectualism  which  has  been  so  char- 
acteristic of  later  modern  thinking,  as  it  was  also 
so  much  needed,  it  has  developed  into  the  wide- 
spread movement  to  make  religion  and  morals 
dependent  on  the  emotional  and  volitional  sides  of 
human  nature  rather  than  matters  of  theoretical 
knowledge.1  More  specifically,  the  appeal  to  faith 
has  been  raised  in  the  period  under  consideration 
by  that  large  class  of  thinkers  who,  although  they 
refuse  to  ignore  the  critical  questions  which  are 
suggested  by  modern  investigation,  are  minded  to 
maintain  the  essentials  of  belief.  Here  belong  the 
man  of  science  with  an  earnest  interest  in  the 
defence  of  spiritual  principles 2  and  the  metaphysi- 


1  The  influence  of  Schleiermacher  has  in  this  respect  strongly 
reinforced  the  work  of  Kant. 

2  The  late  G.  J.  Romanes,  for  example ;  cf .  chap.  II.,  pp.  81-82, 
and  chap.  VI.,  p.  241. 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT        39 

cian  by  profession,1  the  philosopher  of  religion  and 
the  theologian/  poets  and  men  of  letters  not  a  few,3 
the  artistic  temperament  in  its  nobler  forms  prov- 
ing itself  peculiarly  responsive  to  the  claims  of  the 
ideal  nature  —  in  short,  among  those  who  favor 
the  appeal  to  faith  are  to  be  numbered  thinkers  of 
the  most  diverse  types,  who  yet  are  brought  to- 
gether by  the  endeavor,  in  their  own  behalf  or  for 
the  sake  of  others,  to  stem  the  tide  of  negation 
which  for  so  long  has  been  rolling  in  upon  the 
modern  mind. 

The  special  application  of  the  faith  doctrine  is 
to   the   principles   of   morality   and   religion.     In 

1  Sir  William  Hamilton  ("  On  the  Philosophy  of  the  Uncon- 
ditioned," 1829)  ;  F.  Paulsen  (Einleitung  in  die  Philosophic,  1892, 
pp.  8  ff.,  251  ff.,  322  ff.  —  9th  ed.,  1903)  ;  VV.  James  (cf.  chap.  VI., 
pp.  239  ff.)  ;  and  many  others. 

2  E.g.  H.  L.  Mansel  (Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  1858).  At 
the  present  time  perhaps  the  most  successful  school  of  German 
theologians,  the  school  which  owes  its  inspiration  as  well  as  its 
name  to  Albrecht  Ritschl  (1822-1889),  makes  judgments  of  worth 
or  value  the  vehicle  of  religious  conviction,  thinking  thereby  to 
escape  not  merely  the  difficulties  created  by  modern  science  and 
philosophy,  but  also  the  questions  which  are  raised  by  modern 
critical  inquiries  and  the  doubts  which  arise  within  the  sphere 
of  theology  itself.  Cf.  A.  E.  Garvie,  The  Ritschlian  Theology, 
pp.  172-193. 

8  Schiller,  Chateaubriand,  Tennyson  (cf.  the  Memoir  by  his  Son, 
vol.  I.,  chap.  XIV. ;  also,  E.  Ilershey  Sneath,  The  Mind  of  Tenny- 
son), Browning  (cf.  H.  Jones,  Browning  as  a  Philosophical  and 
Religious  Teacher,  pp.  233-273,  314-339),  may  be  instanced  as  rep- 
resentative of  a  numerous  class. 


40        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

some  instances  it  has  been  extended  to  cover 
fundamental  theoretical,  as  well  as  fundamental 
practical,  positions,  but  more  often  the  tendency 
of  its  advocates  is  to  abandon  metaphysics  in  the 
theoretical  meaning  of  the  term  in  order  to  pre- 
serve the  principles  of  religion  and  conduct.  For 
when  men  are  driven  to  bay  in  the  struggle  to 
maintain  the  validity  of  their  most  intimate  and 
most  cherished  convictions,  they  are  willing  to 
give  up  all  but  the  citadels  of  the  inner  life,  hold- 
ing the  surrender  a  small  price  to  pay  for  the 
rescue  of  truths  which  they  consider  of  transcen- 
dent importance.  But  in  so  doing,  as  they  soon 
discover,  they  sacrifice  the  abstract  founda- 
tions of  the  principles  on  which  they  put  the 
highest  value ;  so  that  additional  need  arises  to 
call  on  the  emotional  and  volitional  sides  of  mind 
to  supply  a  basis  for  belief  and  action.  Morals  are 
now  declared  to  rest  upon  the  deliverances  of 
man's  ethical  nature,  unsupported  by  any  deeper 
or  more  inclusive  principles.  Religion  must  ex- 
change the  letter  for  the  spirit,  and  this  for  apolo- 
getic as  well  as  ethical  reasons,  since  the  only 
possible  way  of  escape  from  doubt  is  through  the 
adoption  of  the  spirit  rather  than  of  the  formulas 
of  devotion.  The  response  to  the  demands  of 
truth  echoing   in   our   souls   is   interpreted   as  a 


TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT    41 

special  spiritual  faculty  which  guarantees  the  va- 
lidity of  its  own  message,  but  which  is  not  to  be 
confused  with  reason  —  for  "  religion  is  not  a  mat- 
ter of  the  intellect  but  of  the  heart,"  "  not  of  rea- 
son but  of  faith." 

At  a  later  stage  of  this  inquiry 1  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  consider  whether  the  philosophy  of  faith 
or  feeling  possesses  permanent  worth.  For  often 
as  it  appears  in  the  history  of  reflection,  and  al- 
though its  appeal  to  the  nobler  elements  in  hu- 
man nature  is  as  inspiring  as  it  is  insistent,  it  is 
plain  that  in  the  end  it  must  reckon  alike  with 
the  attacks  of  theoretical  reason  upon  the  validity 
of  its  primary  assumption  and  with  the  conclusions 
which  have  been  established  by  other  forms  of 
thought.  So  stern  questions  come  up  which 
simply  cannot  be  ignored.  Is  any  complete  sepa- 
ration possible,  or  desirable,  between  the  cognitive 
and  the  affective  factors  in  belief  ?  Is  the  faith- 
philosophy  tenable  when  it  is  tested  by  the  usual 
criteria  of  thought  ?  And  if  sound  in  principle,  is  it 
adequate  to  support  the  spiritual  interests  of  man- 
kind ?  By  way  of  anticipation,  it  may  be  stated 
here  that  the  outcome  of  the  later  discussion  will 
bear  in  favor  of  the  doctrine,  though  in  a  moder- 
ate rather  than  an  extreme  form.     For  the  pres- 

1  See  chap.  VI. 


42         TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

ent  it  is  more  important  to  note  that,  whatever  be 
the  ultimate  significance  of  the  movement,  in  eras 
of  transition  it  accomplishes  a  useful  work.  Al- 
though it  excites  the  scorn  of  negative  thinkers 
and  for  the  time  rouses  them  to  fiercer  denuncia- 
tion of  opinions  which,  as  they  view  the  matter, 
stand  in  need  of  forlorn  appeals  to  the  emotions 
in  order  to  save  positions  which  the  progress  of 
knowledge  has  compromised,  it  interferes  with 
the  success  of  their  destructive  activity  by  bring- 
ing into  prominence  the  inherent  presumptions  in 
favor  of  spiritual  principles.  To  minds  bewildered 
by  the  conflicting  results  of  thought,  it  offers  a 
means  of  preserving  their  confidence  in  ideal  truth 
in  the  face  of  difficulties  which  they  are  able 
neither  to  grasp  in  their  completeness  nor  success- 
fully to  resolve.  Others  who  with  fuller  knowl- 
edge are  oppressed  by  the  discrepancies  between 
the  results  of  reflective  thought  and  the  verities 
of  the  spiritual  life,  are  encouraged  now  to  ac- 
cept the  faith-principle  as  a  solution  of  their 
doubts,  now  to  find  in  it  the  token  that  broader 
and  more  satisfactory  answers  to  the  questions  of 
the  age  may  in  time  be  looked  for. 

Apart  from  the  assistance  which  the  faith-phi- 
losophy supplies  in  the  recovery  from  unbelief,  it  is 
full  of  meaning  as  a  further  sign  of  the  disintegra- 


TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT        43 

tion  of  the  transitional  movement.  The  develop- 
ment of  dissatisfaction  with  negative  conclusions  is 
proof,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  age  has  passed  its 
point  of  culmination  —  the  endeavor  to  bulwark 
religion  and  morals  by  the  evidence  of  faith  forms 
the  first  attempt  with  promise,  since  eclecticism 
fails,  to  transcend  the  difficulties  by  which  the 
confusion  in  opinion  has  been  caused.  In  itself 
imperfect  and  of  but  partial  though  significant 
validity,  it  points  thought  forward  to  a  happier 
time,  when,  with  fresh  resolution  and  renewed  con- 
fidence in  the  scope  of  its  powers,  the  mind  shall 
resume  its  task  as  a  framer  rather  than  a  censor 
of  explanations  of  the  world  and  life.  For  thus  it 
is,  as  will  be  shown  in  more  detail  below,1  that 
eras  of  transition  in  thought  are  brought  to  their 
definitive  termination.  As  the  dissolution  of  the 
older  doctrines  proceeded  from  the  fact  that  criti- 
cism or  discovery  had  broken  down  the  founda- 
tions upon  which  they  rested,  so  a  broader  and 
more  accurate  synthesis  is  required  to  supply  the 
premises  for  the  labor  and  the  life  of  the  later 
time.  If  the  work  of  destruction  was  effected 
under  the  leadership  of  some  master  critic,  who  ex- 
posed the  weakness  of  time-honored  views  or  the 
absurdities    in  which    they   issue  when   compared 

JCf.  chap.  VII.,  pp.  306  ff. 


44        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IX   THOUGHT 

with  the  revelations  of  advancing  knowledge,  so 
when  negation  is  to  be  replaced  by  creative  effort 
there  is  need  for  some  great  personality  —  some 
Socrates,  Plato,  Luther,  Kant  —  to  lead  man's 
thought  a  further  stage  toward  the  completion  of 
its  work.  Thought  and  life  cooperated  in  the  gen- 
esis of  the  sceptical  movement — life  and  thought, 
the  impulse  of  the  heart  to  inspire,  the  action  of 
intelligence  to  direct,  develop,  and  complete,  unite 
in  the  recoil  from  doubt  which  sets  limits  to  the 
process  of  destruction  and  the  advance  which 
marks  the  dawning  of  a  new  constructive  age. 


CHAPTER   II1 

TYPICAL  ERAS  OF   TRANSITION 

It  has  been  remarked  in  the  preceding  chapter 
that  reflective  thought  moves  in  cycles.  Its  prog- 
ress is  not  uninterrupted,  but  often  between  con- 
structive eras  periods  of  dissolution  intervene, 
which  for  the  time  threaten  the  entire  fabric  of 
thought  with  destruction.  This  is  true,  what- 
ever be  the  meaning  assigned  to  thought.  It 
may  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  philosophy;  and 
philosophy,  in  turn,  be  technically  defined,  for 
instance,  as  a  "rational  system  of  fundamental 
principles."  2  Or  it  may  be  understood  in  a  broader 
way  to  cover  those  general  views  of  the  world  and 
life  to  which  philosophy  in  its  stricter  significance 
is  so  intimately  related;  to  cover  science  and  lit- 
erature and  art,  history  and  politics  and  religion, 
the  knowledge  that  a  man  or  an  age  believes 
to  have  been  gained,  the  aspirations  which  guide 

1  Chapter  IT.  and  parts  of  chaps.  III.-IV.  were  printed  in 
The  Methodist  Review,  vols.  LXXIX.,  LXXXI. 

2  J.  II.  W.  Stuckenberg,  Introduction  to  the  Stud//  of  Philosophy, 
chap.  I. 

45 


46         TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

conduct,  the  institutions  and  their  underlying 
beliefs  which  in  part  come  down  to  each  age 
from  the  past,  in  part  owe  their  genesis  to  its 
own  inherent  life.  In  either  case  the  truth  of 
the  cyclical  character  of  thought-progress  is  ap- 
parent, although  it  would  undoubtedly  be  more 
agreeable  if  the  fact  were  otherwise.  If  the  mind 
could  advance  by  steady  stages,  each  in  turn  form- 
ing the  platform  for  a  new  step  forward  as  in  itself 
it  represented  the  outcome  of  the  stage  preceding, 
much  of  anxiety  in  practical  affairs  would  be 
avoided  as  well  as  much  of  confusion  in  the  sphere 
of  man's  theoretical  activity.  But  since  we  must 
be  content  with  progress  by  flux  and  reflux,  these 
eras  of  transition  become  subjects  which  at  once 
invite  inquiry  and  reward  it. 

It  has  also  been  noted  that  the  transitional 
periods  in  human  thinking  possess  a  certain  family 
resemblance;  that  within  somewhat  broad  limits 
they  form  what  the  naturalist  might  call  a  genus ; 
that  they  exhibit  certain  uniformities  of  develop- 
ment which  by  way  of  analogy,  but  only  in  this 
way,  may  be  compared  to  the  laws  which  science 
discovers  in  the  material  world.  There  is,  how- 
ever, another  side  to  the  subject,  which  has  its 
abiding  interest  and  its  present  value.  This  con- 
sists in  the  specific  differences  by  which  the  vari- 


TYPICAL   ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  47 

ous  transitional  ages  have  been  characterized  and 
which  give  to  each  of  them  an  individual,  incom- 
municable stamp.  In  spite  of  the  likeness  existing 
among  them,  we  must  not  expect  to  find  absolute 
uniformity  in  negation,  any  more  than  it  is  to  be 
looked  for  in  positive  thought.  A  Protagoras  is 
not  an  Occam ;  nor  could  he  be  unless  the  Greece 
of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ  were  exchanged 
for  the  Paris  of  the  fourteenth  century  after  the 
birth  of  our  Lord.  Francis  Bacon  and  John  Stuart 
Mill,  to  take  another  example  from  among  the 
leaders  of  thought,  differ  so  widely  as  to  indicate 
a  subtle  variation  in  the  spirit  of  the  ages  for 
which  they  wrote.  For  as  with  the  leaders  and 
their  conclusions,  so  with  the  ages  which  they 
guide.  Personal  and  national  characteristics  com- 
bine with  the  broader  and  more  fundamental  con- 
ditions of  thought.  The  development  of  national 
culture,  the  extent  of  scientific  attainment,  the 
stage  of  political  organization,  the  progress  of 
social  development,  the  character  and  the  purity 
of  ethical  conceptions,  the  nature  and  the  in- 
tensity of  religious  convictions  —  these  factors  in 
thought  join  with  temperament  and  environment 
and  history  to  make  Sophism  different  from  the 
post-Aristotelian  scepticism,  to  distinguish  the 
era  of  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  from 


48        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

the  eighteenth  century,  to  render  our  own  critical 
era  at  once  the  heir  of  the  negations  of  other  days 
and  the  responsible  executor  of  its  peculiar  task. 

The  Sophistic  movement  in  Greece  was  one  of 
those  phases  of  ancient  thinking  which  by  their 
typical  character  lend  to  the  philosophy  of  an- 
tiquity its  perennial  charm.  Since  the  discussions 
of  Hegel 1  and  of  Grote 2  the  question  has  been 
urgent  whether  the  period  should  be  considered 
one  of  definite  scepticism;  whether  the  Sophists 
have  not  been  a  much  misunderstood  and  much 
maligned  class  of  men ;  whether,  to  put  the  doubt 
most  sharpty,  there  was  any  substantive  school  of 
thinkers  corresponding  to  the  term.  This  historic 
doubt,  furthermore,  has  operated  to  produce  a 
juster  estimate  of  the  movement,  although  it  is 
now  understood  that  the  contention  of  its  extreme 
defenders  went  farther  astray  in  the  one  direction 
than  the  traditional  detraction  of  the  critics  in  the 
other.  Recent  historians  of  philosophy  recognize 
both  the  destructive  character  of  the  Sophists' 
work  and  the  causes  or  conditions  which  formed 
their  partial  justification.8  It  is  clear  that  with 
the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ  a 

1  Geschichte  der  Philosophie,  vol.  II.,  pp.  3-39. 

2  History  of  Greece,  chap.  LXVII. 

8  Cf.  E.  Zeller,  Pre-Socratic  Philosophy,  vol.  II.,  pp.  391-407, 
496-506. 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  49 

time  had  come  for  Greece  when  abstract  thought 
and  the  development  of  the  nation  conspired  to 
yield  a  platform  for  negative  conclusions.  The 
conflicts  of  the  philosophic  schools,  and  the  agree- 
ment of  many  celebrated  theories  in  the  one  nega- 
tive result,  that  popular  thought  is  delusive  — 
facts  like  these  had  combined  with  the  progress  of 
culture,  with  political  change  and  civil  war,  with 
critical  alterations  in  religious  belief  and  national 
habits,  to  generate  a  set  of  conditions  of  which  doubt 
and  scepticism  are  the  natural  consequences.1 

Nevertheless,  the  Greek  Sophistic  is  marked  by 
features  which  cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  influence 
of  these  forces  alone.  Most  prominently  the  move- 
ment exhibits  a  thoroughness  in  its  sceptical  tem- 
per and  in  its  destructive  results  which  gives  it 
an  altogether  remarkable  stamp.  It  is  not  merely 
some  one  department  of  knowledge  that  is  now 
brought  into  question,  but  rather  the  whole  circle 
of  thought ;  for  from  the  perceptions  of  the  senses 
to  metaphysical  speculation,  there  is  nothing  which 
does  not  stand  condemned  when  tested  by  the  criti- 
cism of  the  time.  In  fact,  certain  distinctions  be- 
tween the  several  spheres  of  human  thinking  on 
which  much  stress  has  been  laid  in  later  times,  in 
the  endeavor  to  determine  the  limits  and  validity 

>  Cf.  chap.  I.,  pp.  13-14,  15-16,  25. 


50        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

of  knowledge,  were  not  drawn  by  the  leaders  of 
Sophism.  The  rather  did  they  involve  all  knowl- 
edge in  one  general  web  of  distrust,  and  turn  their 
efforts  to  the  preparation  of  the  pupils  committed 
to  their  care  for  success  in  practical  life. 

If  inquiry  be  made  into  the  causes  of  this  preva- 
lence of  negation  in  the  Sophistic  thinking,  and  the 
similar  spirit  manifested  by  the  post-Aristotelian 
sceptics  be  recalled,  the  suggestion  is  near  that 
it  was  due  to  some  general  characteristic  common 
to  the  Greek  mind  throughout  the  various  stages 
of  its  development.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
explanation  may  be  sought  in  features  special  to 
reflection  at  the  period  when  Sophism  had  its 
origin.  Thus  it  may  be  urged  that  the  philo- 
sophical inheritance  of  the  Sophists  was  a  crude 
one,  as  was  their  philosophical  training ;  and,  fur- 
ther, that  they  showed  a  lack  of  intellectual  and 
moral  earnestness  which,  while  it  unfavorably  dis- 
tinguishes them  from  the  doubters  of  certain  other 
ages,  throws  a  reflex  light  on  the  genesis  of  their 
doubt  itself.  But  in  the  opinion  of  the  writer, 
the  content  of  Hellenic  culture  and  the  stage  of 
intellectual  development  which  the  Greeks  had 
reached  may  more  justly  be  thought  of  as  con- 
nected with  the  character  of  their  unbelief.  Not 
of  course  that  this  culture  is  to  be  rated  low,  for 


TYPICAL   ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  51 

it  must  be  remembered  not  only  that  Grecian  civili- 
zation remains  a  type  of  classical  achievement, 
but  also  that  the  Sophistic  age  followed  rather 
than  preceded  the  golden  period  of  Greek  states- 
manship and  literature  and  art.  It  is  therefore  to 
the  nature  and  content  of  Greek  thinking  that 
attention  must  be  directed  in  the  search  for  a 
solution  of  the  problem.  History  and  poetry  and 
drama  and  the  arts,  the  beginnings  of  philosophical 
speculation,  something  of  mathematical  and  natural 
science  —  these  Greece  possessed,  but  no  great  body 
of  reflective  truth,  either  philosophical  or  scientific, 
which  had  been  wrought  out  by  the  strenuous 
labor  of  generations  of  thinkers  and  accepted  as 
proven  through  considerable  periods  of  time.  In 
this  the  Greece  of  the  era  under  discussion  was 
unlike  both  the  mediaeval  Europe  which  preceded 
the  Renaissance  and  the  modern  Europe  in  which 
the  Renaissance  and  Reformation  issued.  In  the 
first  of  these  later  ages  there  was  a  great  dogmatic 
system,  deemed  the  evident  outcome  of  cogent 
philosophic  reasoning  as  well  as  the  substance  of 
revealed  truth;  the  second  boasts  a  vast  body  of 
phenomenal  acquisitions,  welded  together  under 
the  principle  of  natural  law  and  approving  itself 
alike  by  its  verifiable  accuracy  and  its  practical 
usefulness.    In  Greece  the  treasures  of  the  national 


52         TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

thought  were  of  another  kind.  As  the  old  ethical 
and  religious  maxims  gave  way  before  the  begin- 
nings of  rational  inquiry,  philosophy  came  to  em- 
brace all  the  subjects  of  the  thinking  of  the  day. 
The  Greeks'  crude  interpretations  of  nature,  their 
formulas  of  conduct,  their  imaginings  concerning 
the  gods,  became  constituent  parts  of  the  new  wis- 
dom, with  everything  else  of  intellectual  result 
loosely  associated  with  these  in  the  one  thought- 
fabric.  So  when  wisdom  proved  itself  a  snare,  the 
entire  outcome  of  thought  seemed  unworthy  of 
further  credence.  Little  of  established  truth  re- 
mained to  form  the  starting-point  for  new  con- 
struction, or  even,  although  the  age  was  one  when 
such  prompting  was  peculiarly  needed,  to  serve  as 
a  reminder  that  truth  in  any  sense  is  attainable 
by  man.  For  thought  was  then  so  young  and  had 
experienced  so  many  vicissitudes  in  the  course  of 
its  brief  history,  that  the  habit  of  belief  had  not 
become  sufficiently  fixed  to  remain  a  form  for  fresh 
acquisitions  when  the  content  of  the  old  had  disap- 
peared. So  the  time  of  crisis  ended  in  revolution, 
until  Socrates  appeared  to  re-create  thought  by 
basing  it  on  a  hitherto  untried  foundation. 

The  era  of  transition  from  mediaeval  to  modern 
times  was  characterized  first  of  all  by  its  great 
magnitude.     In  time,  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  53 

centuries  are  often  assumed  to  include  the  entire 
period.  But  when  a  broader  view  is  taken,  its 
beginning  can  hardly  be  dated  later  than  the  end 
of  the  Crusades,  or  its  close  before  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  In  space,  the  events  of 
the  era  spread  over  Western  Europe  from  Italy 
to  England  and  Scandinavia,  while  one  principal 
impulse  of  the  time,  the  wave  of  religious  reform, 
though  checked  in  the  Latin  countries  of  the  South, 
transmitted  its  effects  across  the  sea,  and  the  colo- 
nies became  seats  of  Protestant  belief  as  well  as 
the  home  of  a  free  people.  No  less  remarkable 
than  the  extent  of  the  movement  in  time  and 
space  was  the  scope  of  its  influence  on  human 
thought  and  the  various  manifestations  of  man's 
corporate  life.  Philosophy  and  science,  literature 
and  art,  religion  and  theology,  jurisprudence  and 
politics,  nay,  man's  entire  manner  of  thinking  about 
the  world  and  his  whole  manner  of  life  therein 
experienced  changes  of  so  momentous  a  character 
that  the  movement  became  an  emancipation  from 
the  traditions  and  the  trammels  of  the  past.  In  a 
word,  in  these  centuries  medisevalisin  dies,  and  the 
modern  spirit  is  born  —  the  modern  spirit  with  its 
free  inquiry  and  its  trust  in  reason,  with  its  delight 
in  this  world,  if  not  a  certain  neglect  of  other- 
worldliness,  with  its  restless  energy  in  opening  up 


54        TEANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

the  earth  to  the  life  and  use  of  man,  as  well  as  in 
searching  out  its  hidden  secrets.  Moreover,  these 
various  phenomena  of  transition  were  no  greater 
than  might  have  been  argued  from  the  magnitude 
of  the  forces  at  work  to  produce  them.  The  impos- 
ing systems  of  the  Scholastic  philosophy  had  long 
been  undergoing  decay.  The  mediaeval  church  by 
its  dogmatic  insistence,  by  its  temporal  pretensions, 
by  its  moral  decline,  had  long  been  preparing  the 
rejection  of  its  supreme  authority.  National  feel- 
ing, fostered  by  the  new  national  literatures,  had 
come  in  to  aid  the  princes  and  the  Holy  Father  in 
opposing  the  dominance  of  the  Empire.  Educa- 
tion had  succeeded  to  the  darkness  of  the  earlier 
mediaeval  centuries ;  contact  with  the  Oriental 
world  and  reviving  commerce  had  brought  in  new 
ideas  as  well  as  unwonted  comforts ;  art  had  blos- 
somed forth  in  forms  of  wondrous  beauty ;  the 
great  inventions  had  furthered  the  progress  of  the 
new  learning  as  well  as  broken  the  force  of  me- 
diaeval custom ;  the  great  discoveries  had  enlarged 
the  mental  horizon,  besides  revealing  the  existence 
of  unknown  lands  beyond  the  sea.  As  great  as 
was  the  difference  between  the  forms  of  thought 
and  life  which  we  term  mediaeval  and  modern,  so 
great  were  the  forces  of  change  in  the  centuries 
which  at  once  divided  and  connected  the  two  eras. 


TYPICAL  ERAS  OF  TRANSITION  55 

In  view  of  these  conditions,  it  is  a  striking  fact 
about  the  movement  that  it  included  so  much  of 
positive  thought.1  Men  abandoned  medievalism, 
but  they  did  not  therefore  adopt  a  negative  view 
of  the  world.  The  revolution,  despite  its  magni- 
tude, did  not  issue  in  chaos ;  great  as  were  the 
changes  in  belief,  secular  and  religious,  entire 
rejection  of  belief  in  the  main  was  not  the  out- 
come. Rather,  with  a  confidence  which  distin- 
guishes the  era  alike  from  some  earlier  and  from 
some  later  periods  of  transition,  it  was  felt  that 
the  things  which  had  been  discarded  were  to  be 
replaced  by  constructions  with  an  analogous  pur- 
pose, though  of  a  different  sort.  It  is  not  intended, 
of  course,  to  ignore,  or  even  to  minimize,  the  facts 
which  would  resist  arrangement  under  this  rubric. 
No  such  era  of  transition  can  pass  without  anxiety 
and  doubt  and  sceptical  despair.  Religious  decline 
and  moral  disaster  are  also  among  the  results  which 
these  periods  seem  inevitably  to  imply.  And  the 
centuries  of  transition  from  the  mediaeval  to  the 
modern  world  form  no  exception  to  the  rule.  If 
attention  be  directed  to  the  decay  of  conviction 
which  accompanied  the  decline  of  the  Scholastic 
thinking,  or  to  the  ethical  and  spiritual  declension 

1  Cf.  II.  Hoffding,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  (Eng.  trans.), 
vol.  I.,  p.  1. 


;jG        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

of  the  later  mediaeval  church,  or  to  the  gropings 
and  the  conflicts  through  which  the  Reformation 
fought  its  way  to  victory,  not  now  to  enumerate 
concrete  examples  of  sceptical  opinion,  no  one  will 
be  disposed  to  deny  that  the  period  under  discus- 
sion, in  this  respect  as  in  others,  conforms  to  the 
general  law. 

But  two  features  of  the  movement  always 
occasion  surprise,  and  both  point  toward  the  con- 
clusion that  has  just  been  stated.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  remarkable  how  many  elements  of 
medievalism  survive  in  the  thought  of  the  transi- 
tional age  and  how  long  they  retain  their  place  in 
the  beginnings  of  modern  reflection.  Hence  arises 
a  problem  of  some  magnitude  for  the  historian  of 
opinion.  For  the  difficulty  of  drawing  a  line  of 
division  between  the  middle  ages  and  modern  times 
presses  even  more  hardly  upon  him  than  it  does 
upon  the  historian  of  events,  until,  as  he  finds  his 
limit  moving  farther  and  farther  on,  he  is  tempted 
to  believe  that  many  modern  thinkers  have  re- 
mained half  mediaeval  down  to  the  immediate  fore- 
runners of  contemporary  movements.  In  the  era 
of  transition  proper,  and  the  period  immediately 
succeeding,  this  characteristic  of  the  time  reached 
its  salient  development.  Of  the  truth  at  large 
theology  offers  an  instructive  illustration,  for   it 


TYPICAL   ERAS   OF   TRANSITION  57 

has  often  been  remarked  that  the  revolution  in 
religion  involved  the  substitution  of  one  form  of 
authority  for  another  rather  than  the  rejection 
of  the  traditional  principle  of  authority  altogether. 
From  the  speculative  philosophy  and  science  of  the 
era  it  would  be  easy  to  cite  instances  of  a  specific 
as  well  as  of  a  general  kind,  among  which  none 
would  be  more  striking,  perhaps,  than  the  appear- 
ance of  elements  inherited  from  the  older  thinking 
even  in  the  systems  of  the  leaders  who  began  the 
work  of  modern  reflection.1 

In  explanation  of  this  tendency  toward  survival, 
it  is  essential  to  remember  that  no  era  of  transition 
exhibits  an  abrupt  and  entire  rupture  with  the 
past.  However  novel  the  reflection  of  the  later 
time  may  be,  however  revolutionary  its  spirit  and 
its  aims,  it  cannot  escape  connection  with  earlier 

1  So  Bacon  centred  his  method  of  inductive  inquiry  about  the 
search  for  "  forms,"  a  word  which  recalls  the  terminology  of  the 
Aristotelian  metaphysic,  and  even  to  some  extent  its  underlying 
ideas.  Cf.  T.  Fowler,  Bacon's  Novum  Organum,  Introduction, 
§  8,  and  R.  L.  Ellis,  Works  of  Francis  Bacon  (Spedding,  Ellis  and 
Heath)  Preface  to  Philosophical  AVorks  (8).  And  Descartes,  who 
started  from  universal  doubt,  based  certitude,  when  gained,  upon 
the  divine  veracity  as  well  as  upon  the  principle  of  self-conscious- 
neas,  arguing  the  existence  of  the  veracious  God  the  while  by 
proofs  which  at  many  points  betray  a  distinctly  mediaeval  ancestry. 
Discours  de  la  Methode,  IV. ;  Meditations,  III.-Y.  (and  the  Reponses 
aux  Secondes  Objections:  liaisons,  etc.  —  cf.  Veitch's  translation. 
Appendix);  Principes  de  I"  Philosophic,  I.,  13-47. 


58        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

forms  of  thought,  since  these  have  been  the  lineal 
predecessors  of  its  own  speculative  venture  and,  at 
very  least  in  a  negative  way,  have  determined  its 
point  of  departure.  If  only  in  order  to  repudiate 
them,  the  transitional  movement  must  take  ac- 
count of  the  ideas  and  principles  which  in  the  past 
have  formed  the  staple  elements  of  doctrine ;  and 
such  association  is  certain  to  leave  its  mark  upon 
the  newer  thinking,  even  when  the  latter  is  based 
upon  a  denial  of  conclusions  hitherto  believed  estab- 
lished. There  exists,  moreover,  in  ages  of  transi- 
tion a  disposition  on  the  part  of  those  who  shrink 
from  the  extreme  results  of  destructive  criticism 
to  revive  positions  taken  from  older  systems ; 1  and 
this  tendency,  which  is  common  to  many  different 
eras,  was  furthered  in  the  period  immediately  un- 
der consideration  by  the  special  circumstances  of 
the  time.  For  the  revolt  from  medievalism,  like 
the  culture  of  the  middle  age  itself,  was  often 
rooted  in  memories  of  the  past.  As  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  mediaeval  world,  when  the  barbarism 
of  the  darkest  centuries  had  begun  to  yield,  in  part 
grew  up  about  the  remnants  of  classical  institu- 
tions lingering  on  in  ideal  conception  or  fragmen- 
tary reality,  so  the  fuller  acquaintance  with  ancient 
thought  and  life  which  was  fostered  by  the  revival 

1  Cf.  chap.  IV.,  pp.  132  ff. 


TYPICAL  ERAS  OF  TRANSITION  59 

of  letters  forged  an  indissoluble  link  between  the 
Renaissance  and  antiquity.  Thus  the  return  to 
older  doctrines  was  inspired  by  stronger  motives 
than  those  which  commonly  prevail.  It  was  not 
in  this  instance  a  mere  recoil  from  present  distress 
to  conclusions  which  under  more  fortunate  condi- 
tions had  been  discarded  as  defective  or  outgrown ; 
for  to  many  minds  the  elements  of  antiquity  that 
gained  an  entrance  into  the  culture  of  the  age 
seemed  living  principles  from  a  classic  world  now 
happily  revealed  to  supply  the  foundation  for  the 
life  of  a  new  Europe.  The  literature  and  art  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  their  political  institutions,  their 
religion,  their  philosophy,  had  lessons  for  fifteenth- 
century  Italy  and  Germany,  because  they  were 
deemed  freer,  better,  profounder,  and  more  true 
than  the  rude  and  barren  civilization  which  had 
satisfied  the  mind  of  Western  Europe  a  short  time 
before. 

In  spite,  however,  of  the  mingling  of  old  and 
new,  the  transition  from  the  mediaeval  to  the  mod- 
ern world  involved  in  literal  truth  a  new  birth  of 
culture,  a  renewal  of  the  European  spirit,  not  so 
much  in  continuation  of  the  transitional  movement 
and  developed  from  it,  as  produced  by  the  same 
set  of  causes  to  which  the  latter  owed  its  genesis. 
Therefore  this  first  characteristic  of  the  thinking 


60        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

of  the  time  was  less  significant  than  a  second, 
which  remains  to  be  noticed — the  rapidity  and 
decision  with  which  the  leaders  of  the  age  go  on 
from  their  negative  to  their  positive  work.  De- 
struction is  not  completed  before  construction  is 
begun.  Or,  more  accurately,  it  is  destruction  which 
involves  construction,  at  least  if  the  era  and  its 
various  phases  be  regarded  in  a  large  and  compre- 
hensive way.  When  the  dogmatic  faith  of  the  old 
order  is  abandoned  in  favor  of  reason,  it  is  because 
reason  demands  her  rights  as  an  authoritative 
guide,  not  merely  because  the  two  yield  results  of 
a  conflicting  kind.  The  "handmaid  of  theology" 
does  not  revolt  in  order  that  she  may  cease  from 
her  labors  or  relinquish  her  claims,  but,  to  adopt  the 
common  phrase,  in  order  that  she  "  may  set  up  a 
house  of  her  own."  The  new  science  believes  itself 
a  better  way  of  looking  at  the  world  substituted  for 
one  outgrown,  even  when  it  is  not  definitely  asso- 
ciated with  speculative  doctrines.  Consider  the  long 
line  of  natural  investigators  from  Roger  Bacon  to 
Kepler  and  Galileo,  or  even  to  Boyle  and  Newton, 
and  note  how  widely  spread  among  them  is  the  con- 
viction that,  in  doing  away  with  a  fantastic  system 
of  speculation,  they  are  replacing  it  with  a  positive 
study  —  often  they  term  it  a  philosophy  —  of  the 
real  world.     Bruno  and  his  Italian  compeers  aston- 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  61 

ish  the  later  modern  mind  by  their  strange  mix- 
ture of  modern  naturalistic  tendencies  and  aesthetic 
longings  and  recollections  of  ancient  philosophemes. 
Kepler's  discovery  of  the  laws  of  planetary  motion 
is  described  by  a  recent  historian  of  philosophy  as 
"  the  outcome  of  his  endeavors  to  find  an  exact 
foundation  for  his  theory  of  the  world  "  ; *  while 
in  a  phrase  which  startles  us  by  its  anticipation  of 
a  famous  watchword  of  the  later  time  —  though 
of  course  the  resemblance  must  not  be  pressed  — 
Lord  Bacon  summons  men  back  from  the  ab- 
stractions of  the  schools  to  the  study  of  things 
themselves. 

But  perhaps  the  most  impressive  example  of  the 
spirit  is  to  be  found  in  the  mutations  of  theological 
opinion.  Wherever  we  strike  into  the  stream  of 
religious  change,  how  plain  it  is  that  the  movement 
is  in  fact  a  reformation  of  faith  and  practice,  rather 
than  an  abandonment  of  them.  Luther,  once  an 
Augustinian  monk,  becomes  the  lion-hearted  leader 
of  reform.  Mysticism  is  a  subordinate  trait  in  his 
character,  if  not  as  some  would  have  it  the  main- 
spring of  his  religious  experience.  The  movement 
also  which  Luther  heads,  in  spite  of  its  divergence 
from  the  ancient  forms,  is  aglow  with  fervor,  pul- 
sating under  the  influence  of  a  deep  spiritual  life. 

1  Falckenberg,  op,  cit.,  \>.  57. 


62        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

And  yet  how  impossible  it  is  for  leader  or  for 
church  to  dispense  with  dogma,  In  the  man  the 
heroic  temper  is  so  centred  about  doctrinal  forms 
that  he  insists  upon  the  literal  interpretation  of  the 
Eucharistic  formula,  even  to  the  detriment  of  the 
cause  which  he  has  at  heart  and  to  the  point  of 
alienation  from  his  natural  allies.1  The  church 
must  have  its  doctrinal  symbols,  so  gentle  Melanch- 
thon  begins  the  task  —  a  task  continued  by  many 
successors  in  various  branches  of  the  Protestant 
body  until  the  middle  of  the  next  century,  the 
seventeenth,  brings  the  great  cycle  of  creed  forma- 
tion to  a  close.  Or  add  to  the  creeds,  in  which  the 
belief  of  the  new  church  obtained  its  needed  sym- 
bolic expression,  the  more  detailed  work  of  the 
systematic  theologians,  and  the  question  becomes 
pertinent,  whether  in  the  history  of  post-Reforma- 
tion thinking  there  is  anything  more  sad  than  the 
transformation  of  the  living  faith  into  that  "  new 
Scholasticism  "  which  by  its  rigidity,  not  to  say 
its  frigidity,  has  in  the  sequel  laid  so  many  burdens 
on  heart  and  reason  both. 

The  negative  tendencies  in  thought  which  marked 
the  eighteenth  century  in  Europe  may  be  considered 
in  two  different  ways.  These  movements  may  be 
discussed  in  the  large,  as  they  manifest  themselves 

1  Cf.  G.  P.  Fisher,  History  of the  Reformation,  pp.  147-1-33. 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF   TRANSITION  63 

in  Britain,  as  they  reach  the  climax  of  their  influence 
in  France,  as  they  find  their  parallels  on  German 
soil ;  and  thus  the  entire  century  be  viewed  as  a 
century  of   illumination  divided    into  its  English, 
French,  and  German  developments.     But  while  it 
can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  this  way  of  looking  at 
the  subject  is  more  just,  as  well  as  more  compre- 
hensive, than  it  is  to  concentrate  attention  on  a 
part   of   the   whole,  the    alternative  method   will 
better  serve  the  purpose  of  this  inquiry.     Instead, 
therefore,  of   endeavoring   to  compass   the  entire 
movement  in  one  general  survey,  we  may  follow 
the  example  of  many  historians  and  study  the  En- 
lightenment  chiefly  as    it   culminates   in    France. 
Here  the  movement  will  be  found  modified  through 
the  influence  of  circumstances  due  to  the  condition 
of  the  French  nation  at  the  time,  and  through  the 
introduction  of  elements  dependent  on  the  nature 
of  the  Gallic  mind.     But  as  it  is  often  these  very 
characteristics  that  best  repay  investigation,  there 
need  be  no  regret  for  either  their  existence  or  their 
prominence. 

The  story  of  the  French  Illumination  has  often 
been  told.  The  elements  of  the  doctrine  come  from 
across  the  Channel.1  Acquaintance  with  English 
governmental  forms  moulds  the  political  wisdom  of 

1  Falckenberg,  op.  cit.,  pp.  241-215. 


64        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

Montesquieu.  Voltaire  is  active  in  spreading  the 
fame  of  Locke  and  Newton,  as  well  as  in  securing 
acceptance  for  their  fundamental  ideas.  Diderot 
translates  the  ethics  of  Shaftesbury.  By  many 
hands  a  potent  religious  ferment  is  introduced  in 
the  doctrines  of  the  Deistic  school.  And  once 
entered,  these  excitants  fit  in  with  forces  already 
working,  since  the  condition  and  the  temper  of  the 
nation  were  such  that  the  way  was  prepared  for  the 
development  of  negative  movements.  The  miseries 
of  the  financial  situation ;  the  tension  between  the 
people  and  the  upper  classes  in  society ;  the  luxury 
in  high  places ;  the  misgovernment  and  corruption 
in  church  and  state  alike ;  the  unbelief  on  the  part 
of  official  representatives  of  the  ecclesiastical  body, 
coupled  with  the  repression  of  free  inquiry  —  the 
facts  do  not  need  elaboration  here,  they  may  simply 
be  mentioned  as  the  legitimate  conditions  of  the  first 
of  the  distinctive  features  by  which  the  thought  of 
the  age  was  marked. 

This  first  characteristic  of  the  movement  may  be 
described  as  the  aggressive  spirit  of  the  leaders. 
It  was  not  merely  that  their  work  was  destructive, 
a  general  attack  on  the  established  order,  for  this 
was  but  one  of  the  factors  in  the  aggressiveness  in 
question.  Nor  was  it  simply  a  determined  assault 
on  corruption  wherever  this  had  made  its  way  into 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF   TRANSITION  65 

the  organism  of  society.  Such  assaults  have  not 
been  wanting  in  other  eras  of  transition ;  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  Reformers 
endeavored  to  lop  off  the  foul  excrescences  that 
were  stifling  the  life  of  the  church,  and  Luther  in 
particular  dealt  bitter  as  well  as  vigorous  blows 
after  his  allegiance  to  the  papal  organization  had 
been  shaken.  But  the  hesitancy  of  Luther's  ap- 
proach to  the  point  at  which  such  acts  of  opposition 
became  possible  for  him,  may  be  taken  as  a  sign  of 
the  difference  in  temper  between  the  men  of  his  day 
and  the  protagonists  of  the  eighteenth-century  con- 
flict. In  how  few  of  the  latter  is  there  evident  any 
hesitation  in  throwing  off  the  trammels  of  church 
connection,  or  in  revolting  against  established  in- 
stitutions. How  nearly  universal  with  them  is  a 
certain  vindictive  mood  which  neither  feels  regret 
for  that  which  has  been  discarded,  nor  shrinks  from 
mocking,  from  lampooning,  from  vilifying  things 
by  other  men  held  sacred.  It  is  not  a  crusade  that 
these  writers  are  engaged  in,  but  an  expedition 
against  a  pirate  crew.  Their  enemy  is  not  merely  in 
error,  he  is  outlaw.  In  politics  it  is  revolt  against  tyr- 
anny ;  in  letters,  resistance  to  oppression;  in  religion 
the  cry  goes  up  for  the  "destruction  of  the  Infamous." 
It  is  easy  to  recognize  in  the  disposition  of  the 
French  thinkers  the  spirit  of  men  who  have  been 


66        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

jailed  or  exiled  for  their  opinions,  albeit  their  anger 
is  sometimes  accentuated  by  the  peculiar  nature  of 
the  sufferers ;  of  men  who  have  seen  their  writings 
put  under  the  ban  of  the  censorship ;  of  men  who 
have  sympathized  with  poor  wretches  broken  on 
the  wheel  for  crimes  falsely  charged  against  them 
in  the  sacred  name  of  religion.  If  it  were  not  for 
the  unworthy  character  of  some  of  its  exponents,  it 
might  almost  be  termed  the  spirit  of  France  as  she 
rouses  herself  for  vengeance  on  a  degenerate  rul- 
ing class,  a  reactionary  government,  and  a  church 
which  stands  athwart  the  course  of  progress,  while, 
corrupt  at  heart,  it  is  incapable  of  accomplishing  its 
practical  tasks. 

In  part  connected  with  their  aggressiveness,  in 
part  due  to  other  causes,  was  the  satisfaction  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Enlightenment  with  their  own  theories. 
In  revolting  from  accepted  philosophical  principles 
and  political  systems,  as  in  rejecting  the  traditional 
faith,  they  felt  implicit  confidence  in  the  results  of 
the  new  thinking.  Reason  in  their  view  was  des- 
tined at  once  to  usher  in  a  better  age  of  the  world. 
Error  was  to  disappear,  and  with  error  tyranny, 
the  departure  of  the  twin  evils  to  be  followed  by  a 
universal  deliverance  from  disorder  in  society  and 
from  misery  in  the  individual  life.  If  the  special 
characteristic  of  ancient  Sophism  was  the  complete- 


TYPICAL   EKAS   OF  TKANSITION  67 

ness  of  its  negation,  and  the  era  of  the  Renaissance 
and  the  Reformation  was  distinguished  by  the  ten- 
dency to  replace  discarded  principles  or  institutions 
by  others  conceived  in  a  spirit  favorable  to  the  ends 
which  the  older  growths  had  been  expected  to  pro- 
mote, though  hostile  to  the  forms  which  they  had 
historically  assumed,  the  dominant  idea  of  the 
thinkers  of  the  pre-Revolutionary  epoch  was  the 
supreme  value  of  the  substitutes  proposed  by  them 
for  the  objects  of  their  destructive  attacks.  The 
later  modern  age,  looking  backward  across  the 
Revolution  and  the  Terror,  finds  difficulty  in  realiz- 
ing this  naive  confidence,  but  it  is  indisputable  that 
a  century  and  a  half  ago  it  was  a  leading  feature 
in  the  thinking  of  the  time.  Even  when  they  reach 
conclusions  destructive  at  once  to  accepted  forms  of 
thought  and  to  the  recognized  postulates  of  ethical 
and  social  life,  the  phUosophes  believe  that  they  are 
removing  obstacles  to  the  highest  development  of 
the  human  spirit.  Toward  the  close  of  the  move- 
ment, when  materialism,  sometimes  in  its  most 
naked  form,  has  proved  the  outcome,  they  exult  in 
the  delusion  that  now  at  length  the  vagaries  of  the 
past  have  given  place  to  the  beneficent  workings  of 
untrammelled  reason.  With  as  much  delight  as 
Voltaire  had  scourged  the  church,  the  later  adher- 
ents of   the  movement  maintain    the  negative  of 


08        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

every  form  of  spiritual  philosophy,  of  every  elevated 
doctrine  of  ethics,  of  every  least  manifestation 
of  positive  religious  belief.  Holbach,  for  example, 
in  the  System  of  Nature,1  makes  the  discovery  that 
it  is  the  theological  view  of  the  world  which  is 
chiefly  responsible  for  all  the  error,  oppression,  and 
misery  that  have  burdened  the  human  race.  Then 
he  descants  complacently  on  naturalistic  material- 
ism as  the  source  of  all  wisdom  and  virtue ;  until 
the  reader  is  fain  to  believe  that,  since  the  time 
when  Epicurus  sought  to  sweeten  human  existence 
by  denying  immortality  and  relegating  the  gods  to 
a  life  of  inglorious  ease  apart  from  intervention  in 
mundane  affairs,  there  has  hardly  been  a  more 
gross  misunderstanding  of  the  facts  of  nature  as 
well  as  of  the  needs  of  the  soul. 

In  part  this  complacency,  as  just  remarked,  was 
fostered  by  the  intensity  of  the  spirit  of  revolt. 
In  larger  measure  it  was  dependent  on  other  causes, 
which  have  been  variously  estimated  by  different 
historians  of  opinion.  Hegel,  in  a  brief  but 
eloquent  passage  which  voices  the  conclusions  of 
other  thinkers  not  a  few,  accounted  for  the  enthu- 
siastic optimism  of  the  epoch  by  the  fact  that 
now  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world 
reason  had  been  given  its   rightful   place   as   the 

1  Systeme  de  la  Nature,  1770. 


TYPICAL   ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  69 

organizer  of  spiritual  reality.1  Greater  stress  is 
laid  by  various  critics  of  the  movement  on  the 
native  tendency  of  thought  in  France,  starting 
from  a  given  premise  or  a  few  such,  perspicuously 
and  neatly,  though  with  a  certain  lack  of  depth  in 
thinking,  to  transform  the  accepted  theory  of  the 
world  and  human  life.2  Important  also  was  the 
lack  of  historic  insight  into  the  origin  and  growth 
of  human  institutions  which  formed  so  marked  a 
characteristic  of  eighteenth-century  reflection  and 
made  it  an  easy  prey  to  the  passion  for  reform  by 
means  of  artificial  re-creation.3 

More  special  in  their  influence,  though  at  the 
lowest  estimate  no  less  effective,  were  the  progress 
of  natural  science,  by  this  time  secure  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  a  systematic  development,  and  the  conclu- 
sions concerning  ultimate  questions  deduced  from 
the  results  of  scientific  investigation  by  thinkers  of 
the  speculative  type.4  Long  ere  this,  it  is  true, 
science  had  given  evidence  of  its  power  to  control 
modern  thinking.  In  the  exchange  of  the  medi- 
aeval for  the  modern  spirit  it  had  been  potent,  both 

1  Philosophie  der  Geschiclde  (2d  ed.,  1840),  pp.  535-536. 

2  Cf .  Falckenberg,  op.  cit.,  pp.  81-85. 
8  Cf.  chap.  IV.,  pp.  146-152. 

4  According  to  Taine  (Ancient  Regime,  Bk.  IN.)  the  "classic 
spirit,"  with  its  insistence  on  style  and  its  fondness  for  abstrac- 
tions, formed  the  mould  in  which  the  results  of  science  were  fused 


70        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

in  the  sphere  of  method  and  by  way  of  result. 
Bacon  and  the  methodologists  had  set  before  the 
world  the  ideal  of  an  accurate  and  progressive 
acquaintance  with  empirical  reality.  Copernicus, 
Kepler,  Galileo,  and  the  rest  had  made  discoveries 
of  such  scope  and  import  as  to  revolutionize  men's 
views  of  the  natural  universe.  And  yet,  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  or  even  in  the 
first  half  of  the  seventeenth,  the  scientific  view  of 
the  world  was  far  less  advanced  on  its  way  toward 
completion  than  it  was  in  the  period  of  the  Illu- 
mination, and  the  philosophical  explanation  which 
the  outcome  of  science  suggests  far  less  compacted 
into  a  constructive  force.  In  the  later  era,  espe- 
cially after  Voltaire's  advocacy  of  the  Newtonian 
system  in  France,  they  played  a  foremost  part  in 
the  development  of  opinion.  Negatively  they  under- 
mined traditional  doctrines  in  every  department 
of  thought;  on  the  positive  side  they  stood  ready 
with  principles  of  broad  scope  and  alluring  promise, 
as  well  as  with  far-reaching  implications  of  their 

into  a  revolutionary  force  :  "  To  pursue  in  every  research,  with  the 
utmost  confidence,  without  either  reserve  or  precaution,  the  mathe- 
matical method ;  to  derive,  limit,  and  isolate  a  few  of  the  simplest 
generalized  notions;  and  then,  setting  experience  aside, comparing 
them,  combining  them,  and,  from  the  artificial  compound  thus 
obtained,  deducing  all  the  consequences  they  involve  by  pure 
reasoning,  is  the  natural  process  of  the  classic  spirit  "  (p.  201). 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  71 

own.     Thus  the  elements  of  the  mechanical  theory 
took  their  places  not  merely  as  parts    of   a   new 
science  of  phenomena,  but  as  constituent  factors  in 
a   new   metaphysic,  which  was  deemed   as   trust- 
worthy and  certain  as  the  empirical  principles  from 
which  it  was  inferred.     As  the    period   wore   on, 
moreover,  the  discoveries  of  the  physicians,  physi- 
ologists,  and   natural    historians    encouraged   the 
extension  of  mechanical  and  materialistic  hypothe- 
ses to  cover  the  facts  of  mental,  and  even  of  moral 
life,  these   having   been    already   reduced   to   the 
lowest  possible  terms  by  the  sensationalistic  philoso- 
phy which   believed  itself  the  legitimate  develop- 
ment of  the  empiricism  of  Locke.     Hence,  at  the 
very  time  when  she  was  being  called  upon  to  revo- 
lutionize  the    world,  reason  found   herself   better 
furnished  with  grounds  for  confidence  in  the  scope 
of  her  own  powers  than  had  ever  been  the   case 
with  her  before.     The   light   of   science  shone  so 
bright  that,  dazzled  by   its   beams,  men   dreamed 
thought  capable  of  giving  them  immediate  success 
in  their  endeavors  to  reconstruct  the  foundations  of 
Western  culture.     In  particular,  the  scientific  form 
of  reflection  presented  great  attractions  to  a  people 
just  breaking  free  from   the   constraints  of   long- 
accepted  dogma  in  matters  temporal  and  spiritual 
alike,  and  so  inclined  to  look  upon  the  chief  instru- 


7l^        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

inent  of  its  emancipation  as  fitted  to  provide  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  system  it  was  seeking  to  destroy. 

It  is  also  to  be  noted  that  in  the  France  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  influence  of  scientific  conclu- 
sions, and  even  of  their  materialistic  corollaries, 
was  heightened  by  the  relation  of  science  to  great 
practical  needs.  A  century  and  a  quarter  earlier 
Bacon  had  delighted  in  forecasts  of  the  good  to 
accrue  to  man  from  the  mastery  over  nature  which 
comes  alone  from  understanding  her  and  from 
obedience  to  her  ways.  Now  the  Encyclopaedists 
labored  to  make  the  vision  real  by  placing  the 
results  of  scientific  inquiry  at  the  disposal  of  agri- 
culture and  industry  and  commerce,  in  a  word,  at 
the  disposal  of  the  citizens  of  their  native  land. 
Diderot,  the  editor  of  the  Encyclopaedia,  spared  no 
time  or  effort  to  make  the  great  work  more  fitted 
to  aid  in  the  economic  recovery  of  the  nation.1 
Remembering  his  own  humble  origin,  perhaps, 
and  moved  by  compassion  for  the  lower  classes  in 
society,  this  remarkable  editor-in-chief  would  spend 
days  in  mastering  the  processes  of  some  trade  or  in 
securing  a  picture  of  some  machine,  that  later  in 
the  printed  book  he  might  explain  the  useful  art  to 
the  people,  struggling  under  their  financial  burdens. 
And  whether  or  not  the  story  be  accepted  that  the 

1  See  J.  Morley,  Diderot  and  the  Encyclopaedists,  chap.  V. 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF   TRANSITION  73 

enterprise  made  impression  even  on  the  king  and 
the  royal  circle,  when  they  discovered  in  the  work 
the  explanation  of  objects  familiar  to  them  in  their 
daily  lives,  it  is  certain  that  its  adaptation  to  practi- 
cal wants  was  a  potent  factor  in  its  final  success. 
The  case  is  similar,  also,  in  regard  to  the  entire 
movement  which  the  JEncyclojjcedia  represented. 
The  industrial  and  economic  condition  of  France 
at  the  time  was  such  as  to  require  the  clearest  ex- 
position of  scientific  principles  attainable,  and  their 
most  definite  application  to  concrete  problems. 
This  state  of  affairs  reinforced  the  predilection  of 
the  philosophers  for  the  results  of  scientific  investi- 
gation. Hence,  too,  the  leaders  of  the  movement 
were  more  ready  to  accept  the  naturalistic  theory 
of  things  for  themselves,  and  found  lesser  minds  to 
whom  it  was  communicated  through  their  labors 
the  more  willing  to  give  it  a  sympathetic  welcome. 
The  capital  error  lay  in  the  assumption  that  such 
material  could  nourish  minds  and  hearts,  as  well 
as  serve  the  ends  of  physical  existence.  Yet  even 
this  mistake  is  half  comprehensible,  if  it  be  re- 
membered how  crucial  the  need  then  was  for  relief 
for  the  body  as  well  as  for  the  soul,  and  how 
plainly  the  principles  which  were  bringing  promise 
of  physical  help  conflicted  with  positions  hitherto 
believed  essential  to  the  spiritual  life. 


74        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

In  certain  respects  the  present  age  is  of  a  dif- 
ferent type  from  any  of  the  eras  of  doubt  and 
transition  that  have  preceded  it.  In  particular, 
a  situation  of  especial  difficulty  has  been  created 
by  the  complexity  of  the  questions  with  which 
the  reflection  of  the  time  is  compelled  to  grapple ; 
the  crisis  has  become  acute  because  of  the  multi- 
tude of  conflicting  tendencies  which  have  entered 
in  to  confuse  our  thought.  For  we  are  still  mod- 
erns. The  cycle  which  began  with  the  Renais- 
sance and  the  Reformation  is  not  yet  ended.  In 
spite  of  the  revolution  which  took  place  at  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  men  are  still  at 
work  on  questions  come  down  from  the  age  of 
Bacon  and  Descartes.  The  problems  concerning 
knowledge  which  were  then  proposed  have  not 
received  their  definitive  solution,  nor  can  they 
be  passed  over  as  the  unimportant  questionings 
of  an  outgrown  stage  of  culture.  The  mechani- 
cal theory  of  the  world  remains  a  crux  for  the 
advocates  of  a  spiritual  philosophy  and  the  defend- 
ers of  positive  religious  faith.  Pantheism  and 
atomism,  monism  and  dualism,  continue  to  en- 
gage the  attention  of  philosophic  minds  under 
somewhat  of  the  old  inspiration,  if  not  under 
the  old  leaders.  As  the  nineteenth  century 
closes   and   the   twentieth    begins,   the    Christian 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF   TRANSITION  75 

world  resounds  with  the  Reformers'  question 
concerning  the  seat  of  authority  in  religion. 
Moreover,  the  thinker  of  to-day  is  not  only 
caught  in  the  current  of  modern  thought  as 
a  whole,  but  is  embarrassed  by  the  fact  that 
the  breaking-up  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
not  brought  to  its  term.  Hume  has  lived  on 
in  the  empiricism  of  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  in  Britain  and  the  agnosticism 
of  the  generation  just  ended  in  many  different 
lands.  In  Germany  the  negation  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  was  overwhelmed  by  the  construc- 
tive systems  with  which  the  early  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  were  filled.  But  these  in  turn  went 
down  so  decisively  before  the  onslaught  of  the 
empirical  and  the  historical  sciences  as  to  throw 
men  back  on  the  difficulties,  sometimes  even  back 
on  the  solutions,  which  Kant  and  Hegel  and 
Schleiermacher  believed  they  had  forever  put 
away.  While  this  phase  terminated  and  recovery 
began,  it  was  discovered  that  there  was  left 
neither  satisfactory  system  nor  acceptable  guid- 
ing principle  for  thought.  It  is  evident,  also, 
that  the  era  has  its  peculiar  problems,  sometimes 
in  the  form  of  characteristic  variations  of  older 
questions,  sometimes  of  specifically  new  develop- 
ments.    There  is  the  marvellous  advance  of  physi- 


76        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

cal  science,  with  such  discoveries  as  that  of  the 
conservation  and  correlation  of  energy  and  that 
of  biological  evolution,  and  such  theories  as  the 
principle  of  development  conceived  as  a  world- 
law;  there  is  the  growth  of  the  historical  spirit 
and  the  application  of  the  historical  method  to 
the  question  of  origins,  in  particular  to  the  origin 
of  religion;  there  is  the  development  of  critical 
inquiry,  especially  in  relation  to  the  documentary 
records  of  Christianity;  there  is  the  progress  of 
democracy,  not  only  in  its  moderate  and  lawful, 
but  also  in  its  socialistic  and  anarchistic  phases  — 
and  all  press  on  the  thinker  of  to-day  with  ques- 
tions as  imperiously  demanding  answers  as  the 
answers  are  difficult  to  give.  To  whatever  quarter 
therefore  we  direct  our  gaze,  it  is  plain  that  the 
age  is  filled  with  uncertainty  and  travail.  Our 
task  is  harder  than  that  of  our  fellows  in  other 
times,  for  we  are  burdened  with  a  double  load. 
We  are  trying  to  do  two  days'  work  in  one. 
We  are  struggling  with  difficulties  inherited  from 
the  past  and  with  new  perplexities  born  of  our 
own  intellectual  life. 

One  principal  result  of  this  confusion  is  a  cer- 
tain mingling  of  parties,  or  even  of  conflicting 
elements  within  the  limits  of  a  single  system. 
Most    nearly    pure,    perhaps,    is    that    phase    of 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  77 

thought  which  is  termed  positivism,  or  agnosti- 
cism. Arguing  it  impossible  to  make  any  rational 
decision  concerning  transcendent  questions,  and  by 
profession,  at  least,  holding  the  results  of  science 
true  in  the  phenomenal  sense  alone  and  subject 
to  constant  revision,  this  form  of  thought  claims 
to  confine  its  conclusions  to  the  region  of  strictly 
verifiable  truth.  Nevertheless,  a  moment's  reflec- 
tion will  convince  the  student  of  the  history  of 
opinion  how  far  removed  these  views  are  from 
those  earlier  types  of  thinking  with  which  it  is 
natural  to  compare  them.  Take  the  positions  of 
Huxley,  for  example,  and  compare  them  with 
the  doctrines  of  Protagoras  or  Gorgias,  not  to 
say  the  theories  of  Pyrrho  and  his  followers,  and 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  difference  between  the 
scepticism  of  the  Greeks  and  the  agnosticism  of 
to-day  is  measured  by  the  extent  of  that  imposing 
edifice  of  predictable  fact  and  verifiable  law  which 
nowadays  is  termed  preeminently  science.  For, 
at  its  lowest  terms,  the  negation  of  the  time 
includes  so  much  of  affirmation  as  is  contained 
in  the  belief  in  a  science  of  phenomena.  But 
the  possibility  of  making  scientifically  tenable 
assertions  of  any  sort  was  denied  by  the  ancient 
sceptics.  Fact  which  by  definition  should  be  fact 
for  more  than  the  time,  the  place,  and  the  indi- 


78        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

vidual  in  the  given  circumstances,  was  rejected 
out  of  hand ;  much  more  would  the  assumption 
of  a  body  of  phenomenal  uniformities  of  existence 
or  of  action  have  received  their  utter  condem- 
nation. The  contrast,  further,  becomes  more 
striking,  if  we  turn  from  the  empirical  basis  of 
agnosticism  to  the  dogmatic  views  so  frequently 
associated  with  it.  For  the  limitation  of  the 
conclusions  of  inductive  investigation  to  their 
phenomenal  interpretation  is  apparently  as  diffi- 
cult as  the  restriction  of  agnostic  views  concern- 
ing the  transcendent  world  to  a  mere  not-proven. 
On  the  one  hand,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
science  tends  toward  the  erection  of  its  principles 
into  a  metaphysics  of  the  sensible  world ;  on  the 
other,  it  is  often  felt  that  this  position  is  best 
introduced  by  a  negative  preamble  concerning 
supersensible  reality.  Thus  contemporary  opinion 
issues  in  one  of  the  most  surprising  combinations 
in  the  history  of  human  thinking,  a  dogmatic 
science  of  the  finite  joined  in  ill-assorted  union 
with  a  denial  of  the  possibility  of  ascertaining 
aught  of  absolute  truth,  or  with  the  doctrine 
that  an  Absolute  exists,  but  beyond  the  fact  of 
its  existence  nothing  further  can  be  known. 

And  yet  these  inconsistencies   in    the   spirit  of 
the  age  are  among  its  most  significant  character- 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  79 

istics.  The  Athenians  of  the  fifth  century  before 
the  Christian  era,  amid  the  wreck  of  thought, 
looked  on  truth  as  a  mere  sounding  name;  two 
millenniums  later,  the  leaders  of  the  Reforming 
age  destroyed  accepted  principles  and  institutions 
to  erect  others  in  their  room ;  the  unbelief  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  confident  of  the  validity  of 
its  reasonings,  whether  of  a  negative  or  positive 
kind,  and  content  with  their  meagre  and  barren 
outcome  as  a  substitute  for  the  traditional  systems 
of  intellectual  and  spiritual  truth.  The  negative 
reflection  of  the  present  age  differs  from  each  of 
these.  It  is  certain  of  one  thing,  physical  science. 
It  is  hesitant  or  sceptical  about  most  things  else, 
and  so  unfitted  to  rear  a  new  habitation  for  the 
soul.  It  is  often  conscious,  however,  of  the 
deeper  needs  of  the  human  spirit,  therefore  pro- 
foundly dissatisfied  with  the  results  of  its  own  labors. 
It  is  noteworthy,  moreover,  that  a  certain  cumu- 
lative relation  exists  among  these  several  features 
of  contemporary  thought.  The  certainty  of  its  con- 
clusions in  regard  to  one  set  of  questions  has 
proved  a  pregnant  cause  of  doubt  concerning 
principles  of  other  types;  for  it  is  evident  that 
one  most  fruitful  source  of  agnostic  views  has  been 
the  contrast  between  the  difficulties  of  transcend- 
ent speculation  and  the  success  which  has  attended 


80        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS  IN"  THOUGHT 

the  empirical  investigation  of  natural  phenomena. 
The  lack  of  positive  opinions  on  the  fundamental 
problems  of  the  world  and  the  ultimate  issues  of 
life,  —  except  in  the  case  of  those  who  still  think  to 
find  in  science  pure  and  simple  ample  satisfaction 
for  all  the  demands  of  the  soul,  —  breeds  in  nobler 
minds  a  spirit  of  resolute  renunciation  or  of  bitter 
despair. 

On  the  practical  side  this  saddened  mood  is 
almost  as  marked  as  the  dubitative  tone  of  thought 
in  relation  to  matters  of  theoretical  importance. 
Melancholy  is  the  frequent  portion  of  earnest  souls 
in  periods  of  intellectual  ferment,  as  they  look  out 
upon  the  destruction  of  principles  inwoven  with 
the  fabric  of  culture  and  dear  to  them  in  their 
individual  lives,  or  strenuously  contend  for  new 
conclusions  fitted  to  take  the  places  of  those  which 
must  be  abandoned.1  But  in  this  age  it  has  so 
thoroughly  pervaded  the  literature  as  well  as  the 
reflection  of  the  time,  that  it  has  become  more 
prominent  than  in  any  other  era  since  the  long 
centuries  of  agony  which  witnessed  the  downfall  of 
the  ancient  world.  In  defending  this  estimate, 
the  difficulty  is  not  to  find  citations  which  confirm 
it,  but  to  make  a  selection  from  the  multitude  of 
examples   that   have  given  color  to  the  thought 

1  Cf.  chap.  I.,  pp.  17-23,  29  ft. 


TYPICAL  ERAS  OF  TRANSITION  81 

of  recent  years.  Matthew  Arnold,  brooding,  walks 
the  Oxford  uplands, !  or  muses  at  the  Grande 
Chartreuse :  — 

"  Not  as  their  friend,  or  child,  I  speak ! 
But  as,  on  some  far  northern  strand, 
Thinking  of  his  own  Gods,  a  Greek 
In  pity  and  mournful  awe  might  stand 
Before  some  fallen  Runic  stone  — 
For  both  were  faiths,  and  both  are  gone." 2 

Lowell  visits  Chartres  "  to  give  to  Fancy  one 
clear  holiday,"  but  finds  himself  pursued  by 
thoughts  of  — 

"  This  age  that  blots  out  life  with  question-marks, 
This  nineteenth  century  with  its  knife  and  glass 
That  make  thought  physical,  and  thrust  far  off 
The  Heaven,  so  neighborly  with  man  of  old, 
To  voids  sparse-sown  with  alienated  stars." 3 

Clifford  laments  the  loss  of  faith  in  God,  since  for 
him  "the  Great  Companion  is  dead."4  Romanes, 
who  in  later  life  regained  the  spiritual  conviction 
which  twenty  years  before  he  had  relinquished,  at 
the  close  of  his  earlier  work  voices  in  words  of 
pathetic  beauty  the  grief  of  yielding  obedience  to 
the  imperative  demands  of  sceptical  thought :  — 

1  See  "  The  Scholar-Gipsy  "  and  "  Thyrsis." 

2  "  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse." 
8  "  The  Cathedral." 

4  Lectures  and  Essays  (1879),  vol.  II.,  p.  217. 

o 


82        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

"And  forasmuch  as  I  am  far  from  being  able 
to  agree  with  those  who  affirm  that  the  twilight 
doctrine  of  the  '  new  faith '  is  a  desirable  substitute 
for  the  waning  splendor  of  *  the  old,'  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  confess  that  with  this  virtual  negation 
of  God  the  universe  to  me  has  lost  its  soul  of  love- 
liness; and  although  from  henceforth  the  precept 
'  to  work  while  it  is  day '  will  doubtless  but  gain 
an  intensified  force  from  the  terribly  intensified 
meaning  of  the  words  that  '  the  night  cometh  when 
no  man  can  work,'  yet  when  at  times  I  think,  as 
think  at  times  I  must,  of  the  appalling  contrast 
between  the  hallowed  glory  of  that  creed  which 
once  was  mine,  and  the  lonely  mystery  of  existence 
as  now  I  find  it,  —  at  such  times  I  shall  ever  feel 
it  impossible  to  avoid  the  sharpest  pang  of  which 
my  nature  is  susceptible."  l 

And  Spencer,  criticizing  Mr.  Balfour's  eloquent 
summons  to  belief,2  has  formulated  in  one  of  the 
noblest  passages  that  has  ever  proceeded  from  his 
pen  the  reasons  which  constrain  our  negative  think- 
ers to  adhere  to  their  dreary  creed :  — 

"  It  is  not  that  they  ivish  to  do  this,  but  that  they 
must :  self-deception  is  the  alternative.    There  is  no 

1  A  Candid  Examination  of  Theism,  1878  (published  under  the 
pseudonym,  Physicus),  p.  114;  cf.  chap.  VI.,  p.  241. 

2  The  Foundations  of  Belief ;  cf.  chap.  VI.,  p.  241. 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  83 

pleasure  in  the  consciousness  of  being  an  infinitesi- 
mal bubble  on  a  globe  that  is  itself  infinitesimal 
compared  with  the  totality  of  things.  Those  on 
whom  the  unpitying  rush  of  changes  inflicts  suffer- 
ings which  are  often  without  remedy,  find  no  con- 
solation in  the  thought  that  they  are  at  the  mercy 
of  blind  forces  which  cause,  indifferently,  now  the 
destruction  of  a  sun  and  now  the  death  of  an 
animalcule.  Contemplation  of  a  universe  which  is 
without  conceivable  beginning  or  end,  and  without 
intelligible  purpose,  yields  them  no  satisfaction. 
The  desire  to  know  what  it  all  means  is  no  less  strong 
in  the  agnostic  than  in  others,  and  raises  sympathy 
with  them.  Failing  utterly  to  find  any  interpreta- 
tion himself,  he  feels  a  regretful  inability  to  accept 
the  interpretation  they  offer." x 

Connected  with  this  mood  of  spiritual  dis- 
content —  connected  with  it  in  part  as  among 
its  causes,  in  part,  also,  by  way  of  effect  —  is 
the  ingrained  moral  seriousness  by  which  much 
of  recent  thinking  has  been  marked.  Attention 
has  lately  been  called  anew  to  the  dissatisfac- 
tion of  the  time  with  its  own  unbelief  and  to  its 
earnest  purpose  as  signs  of  promise  for  the  com- 
ing age.2     And  the  prophecy  seems  well  founded, 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  June,  1895,  p.  873. 

2  Henry  van  Dyke,  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  pp.  22-40. 


84        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

since  practical  disillusionment  and  spiritual  longing 
are  characteristic  of  negative  movements  when  their 
influence  is  beginning  to  wane,  and  attempts  at 
constructive  work  to  reappear.1  But  the  present 
writer  would  fain  go  farther,  and  find  in  the  ethical 
spirit  of  recent  scepticism  not  merely  the  reaction 
from  the  practical  effects  of  doubt,  but  an  element 
in  the  thought  of  the  time  which  lifts  it  to  a  nobler 
level  than  the  majority  of  the  transitional  eras 
which  have  preceded  it  have  attained.  At  least 
among  thinkers  of  the  English-speaking  race,  there 
has  been  manifested  in  this  age  a  moral  seriousness, 
sometimes  a  religious  spirit,  which  favorably  dis- 
tinguish them  from  the  doubters  of  other  days. 
John  Stuart  Mill,  and  Spencer,  and  Huxley,  and 
John  Fiske,  —  not  now  to  speak  of  the  poets  and 
the  novelists  of  doubt,  —  how  superior  they  rise  to 
Hume  with  his  cynic  sneer,  to  the  militant  mate- 
rialism of  the  later  French  Illumination,  or  even  to 
the  complacency  of  the  members  of  the  Deistic 
school.  The  difference  is  as  great  in  its  way  as  that 
between  the  fox-hunting  parson  or  the  frivolous  abbe 
of  the  earlier  age  and  the  devoted  Christian  worker 
of  the  present  time,  as  that  which  separates  the  re- 
ligious formalism  of  the  eighteenth-century  church 
from  the  missionary  spirit  of  the  church  to-day. 

i  Cf.  chap.  I.,  pp.  17-23,  32  ff. 


TYPICAL  ERAS   OF  TRANSITION  85 

Nor  is  the  conclusion  weakened  by  the  fact  that 
the  moral  systems  and  the  religious  inferences  of 
our  free-thinkers  rest  on  foundations  hitherto  con- 
sidered insufficient  to  support  the  spiritual  edifice. 
On  the  contrary,  the  discordance  between  premise 
and  conclusion,  as  previous  ages  have  construed  the 
argument,  is  the  best  evidence  of  the  truth  at  large. 
Despite  the  mordant  character  of  their  doubt,  it 
proves  that  the  negative  thinkers  of  the  time  are 
peculiarly  sensitive  to  the  claims  of  the  spiritual 
nature,  that  they  are  animated  by  a  constructive 
impulse  in  matters  of  morals  and  of  faith,  even 
when  the  principles  from  which  they  start  constrain 
them  to  reach  results  which  are  for  the  most  part 
meagre,  in  some  instances  little  better  than  gro- 
tesque. It  shows  also  the  case  in  regard  to  the 
matters  of  the  spirit  akin  to  the  situation  in  the 
affairs  of  the  mind.  Along  with  the  most  search- 
ing criticism  and  the  most  destructive  speculation, 
there  is  manifested  in  the  one  field  as  in  the  other 
a  certain  conservative  tendency  which  delivers  the 
era  from  the  utter  negation  of  other  days.  In  the 
face  of  fiercer  questionings  and  deeper  gloom  than 
commonly  fall  to  the  lot  of  mankind,  amid  prob- 
lems so  perplexing  that  the  abandonment  of  the 
attempt  to  think  has  once  more  been  hailed  as  the 
logical  issue  of  all  reflective  inquiry,  there  remain 


80        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

on  the  side  of  intellect  a  growing  inheritance  of 
knowledge  based  upon  proved  truth,  and  in  the 
sphere  of  practice  an  unquenchable  spiritual  aspira- 
tion, stronger  than  doubt,  which  leads  our  sceptics 
beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  their  theoretical  creed. 
Progress  there  is,  therefore,  even  in  negation,  and 
hope  for  the  future  of  thought,  although  its  latest 
crisis,  from  which  the  world  is  just  beginning  to 
emerge,  has  proved  so  grave.  In  the  next  succeed- 
ing chapter  it  will  be  in  part  our  task  to  trace  out 
the  course  by  which  an  intellectual  movement  that 
is  commonly  counted  chief  among  the  destructive 
forces  has  come  to  make  contribution  to  the  cause 
of  positive  truth. 


CHAPTER   III 

SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT 

According  to  a  conviction  which  is  cherished 
alike  by  scientific  thinkers  and  by  the  popular 
mind,  natural  science  is  superior  to  the  vicissitudes 
which  beset  the  progress  of  other,  less  favored 
forms  of  thought.  The  subjects  of  scientific  in- 
quiry are  such  that  it  is  possible  to  reach  precise 
conclusions  concerning  them.  The  methods  of 
scientific  investigation,  and  the  care  with  which 
they  are  exercised,  guarantee  the  procedure  of 
science  against  disturbing  errors.  The  continuity 
of  scientific  progress  proves  that  the  demands 
which  may  be  legitimately  made  upon  the  leaders 
of  science  have  been  met  in  the  past,  and  that  they 
are  constantly  being  met,  to  a  degree  which  leaves 
no  room  for  transitions  in  opinion  like  those  which 
are  common  to  thought  in  its  historical,  politi- 
cal, or  social,  its  philosophical  and  theological 
developments. 

When  this  estimate  is  taken  in  a  literal  sense,  it 
is  easy  to  see  that  it  is  an  exaggeration.     There  is 

87 


88        TRANSITION  A  L   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

no  need  to  appeal  to  the  enemies  of  science  in 
order  to  show  that  it  is  overdrawn  ;  for  those  scien- 
tific investigators  who  have  most  deeply  penetrated 
into  the  principles  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  their 
favorite  pursuit  have  in  many  instances  been  the 
most  ready  to  recognize  the  fallibility  of  their 
conclusions,  while  now  and  again  from  out  the 
ranks  of  science  itself  a  reminder  has  come  of  the 
waste  and  wreckage  of  hypothesis  and  theory 
which  are  involved  in  the  progress  of  inquiry.1 
Thinkers  of  a  shallower  sort,  and  little  acquainted 
with  either  the  history  or  the  logical  foundations 
of  the  knowledge  which  they  vaunt,  forget  that 
this  progress  implies  not  only  the  well-considered 
advance  into  fields  of  inquiry  where  the  facts  have 
hitherto  baffled  less  instructed  or  less  fortunate 
searchers  after  truth,  but  also  the  rejection  of  ex- 
planations of  phenomena  hitherto  defended  in  op- 
position to  theories  now  established,  or  even  the 
overthrow  of  principles  formerly  accepted  as  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  question.  The  Ptolemaic 
and  the  Copernican  astronomy,  the  atomic  analysis 

1  E.g.  H.  A.  Rowland,  "  The  Highest  Aim  of  the  Physicist," 
American  Journal  of  Science,  vol.  VIII.  (4th  Series),  1899,  pp.  401- 
411;  S.  P.  Langley,  "The  Laws  of  Nature,"  Science,  New  York, 
June  13,  1902,  pp.  921-927.  Cf.  also  G.  Fred.  Wright,  "The 
Civil  Wars  of  Science,"  The  Independent,  New  York,  Sept.  18,  1890, 
pp.  4-5. 


SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT  89 

of  matter,  phlogiston  and  the  anti-phlogistic  the- 
ory, the  emission  theory  and  the  undulatory  theory 
of  light,  catastrophic  and  uniformitarian  geology, 
the  creation  and  the  development  of  species  — 
the  annals  of  science  from  the  dawn  of  modern 
times  down  to  the  present  day  (Darwinism,  neo- 
Darwinism,  and  neo-Lamarckism,  Weismannism 
and  anti-Weismannism,  the  transmission  of  dis- 
ease from  animal  to  man,  the  nature  of  nervous 
action)  teem  with  the  records  of  controversies  in 
which  the  establishment  of  one  alternative  has 
meant  the  overthrow  of  views  held  in  honor 
by  representative  scientific  authorities,  and  not 
infrequently  the  destruction  of  theories  long 
believed  to  be  demonstrated. 

The  advantage  of  science,  therefore,  in  com- 
parison with  other  types  of  reflection,  does  not 
consist  in  entire  freedom  from  the  infirmities  of 
human  thinking.  Its  superiority  depends  rather 
upon  the  greater  degree  of  accuracy  and  stability 
which  it  attains  than  upon  an  absolute  immunity 
from  error.  Fallible  it  is,  like  every  other  product 
of  human  intelligence ;  but  apart  from  the  strictly 
formal  disciplines,  it  is  the  most  nearly  certain 
knowledge  that  we  possess.  So  excellent,  indeed, 
are  its  methods  and  so  definite  its  results,  so 
almost   uninterrupted  has    been    its    progress,    so 


90        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

confidently  may  it  be  expected  not  to  return  upon 
its  steps,  even  when  some  new  advance  necessitates 
the  abandonment  of  conclusions  once  universally 
accepted,  that  for  the  modern  mind,  which  alone 
has  known  it  in  its  typical  development,  science 
has  justly  become  the  standard  of  reference  by 
comparison  with  which  the  reliability  and  the 
precision  of  other  forms  of  thought  may  be  tested. 
In  relation  to  changes  in  opinion  science  has 
a  further  advantage :  by  itself  alone  it  effects  no 
revolutions  in  the  world  of  thought.  This,  how- 
ever, must  not  be  interpreted  to  mean  that  it  plays 
no  part  in  the  development  of  opinion.  The 
attempt  has  often  been  made  to  establish  an 
abstract  separation  between  science  and  philoso- 
phy, or  science  and  theology,  or  science  and  faith. 
But  the  artificial  hypotheses  that  have  been  framed 
in  support  of  the  division  have  by  their  futility 
betrayed  an  unsoundness  in  the  argument  which 
might  have  been  discovered  by  close  examination, 
even  before  they  had  been  put  to  the  test  of  use. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  science,  according  to  its 
proper  definition,  deals  with  phenomena  alone,  and 
the  laws  of  phenomenal  existence,  the  time  is 
happily  past  in  which  it  was  possible  for  philosophy 
to  prosecute  its  researches  in  neglect  of  the 
materials   for   speculative   reflection    that   science 


SCIENCE   AND   DOUBT  91 

brings  to  light.  Faith  moves  in  a  region  of 
spiritual  aspiration  differing  in  much  from  the 
sphere  of  the  purely  theoretical  intellect,  and  it 
breathes  a  different  air,  but  the  church  that  ignores 
the  bearings  of  discovery  upon  the  principles  of 
religion  does  so  at  the  risk  of  worse  than  intel- 
lectual disaster.  It  alienates  seekers  after  truth 
in  fields  other  than  its  own  from  belief  in  the 
spiritual  realities.  It  imperils  its  own  conclusions 
by  neglecting  the  changes  in  the  body  of  empirical 
fact,  on  which  in  part  its  tenets  depend.  The 
non-scientific  forms  of  thought,  it  is  true,  have 
their  rights  as  well  as  science  proper.  Since  they 
are  in  possession  of  independent  sources  of  evidence, 
and  include  principles  not  a  few  that  have  been 
confirmed  by  long  experience,  it  is  often  legitimate, 
in  some  instances  imperative,  for  them  to  assume 
a  conservative  attitude  toward  the  results  of  scien- 
tific inquiry.  Of  right  they  may  demand  that 
views  presented  for  their  acceptance  shall  be  sup- 
ported by  a  preponderant  weight  of  evidence ;  and 
when  the  task  of  bringing  the  new  truth  and  the 
old  into  adjustment  is  laid  upon  them,  they 
may  reasonably  proceed  with  more  of  deliberate 
caution  than  is  necessary  where  there  is  no  respon- 
sibility in  regard  to  the  practical  implications  of 
the  principles  which  may  be  adopted.     In  the  end, 


02        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

however,  they  must  assent  to  the  truths  which 
science  reveals ;  and  when  the  relation  between 
the  several  departments  of  knowledge  is  of  a 
healthy  kind,  they  will  welcome  the  outcome  of 
scientific  inquiry  in  no  reluctant  or  unwilling 
spirit.  By  every  line  of  argument,  therefore,  the 
endeavor  to  keep  science  and  philosophy,  or  science 
and  religion,  in  strict  isolation  the  one  from  the 
other,  is  shown  to  be  idle,  if  not  unworthy.  There 
is  no  more  ground  for  the  attempt  at  an  absolute 
divorce  than  there  is  for  the  opposite  demand, 
that  non-scientific  reflection  should  be  brought  into 
immediate  and  exact  conformity  to  every  detail  of 
scientific  method  and  result. 

How,  then,  does  it  appear  that  science  is  not  the 
force  immediately  at  work  in  the  production  of 
intellectual  crises  ?  If  it  bears  upon  political  and 
social  development,  if  its  relations  to  philosophy 
and  theology  are  still  more  close  and  intimate, 
why  is  it  not  to  be  counted  among  the  phases 
of  thinking  which  directly  share  in  revolutionary 
movements  ?  Chiefly  for  two  reasons.  First,  be- 
cause science,  at  least  up  to  the  present  time,  has 
never  so  completely  engrossed  the  interest  of  man 
that  its  own  internal  variations  have  in  any  given 
case  amounted  to  a  direct  and  entire  reversal  of  the 
substance  of  ideal  opinion.     Thinkers  there  are  in 


SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT  93 

considerable  numbers  who  predict  that  the  reduc- 
tion of  human  culture  to  an  exclusively  scientific 
basis  is  certain  to  come  in  the  future,  and  some 
who  with  confidence  proclaim  the  new  gospel  to 
their  fellows,  imagining  that  the}-  have  brought 
their  own  lives  down  to  this  level  and  have  found 
their  happiness  in  the  fact.  But  whatever  be  the 
truth  or  error  involved  in  the  prophecy,  it  is  a  cer- 
tain matter  of  record  that  hitherto  mankind  has 
been  far  from  finding  the  springs  of  its  life  entirely 
in  the  pursuit  of  scientific  aims  or  the  exclusive 
content  of  its  convictions,  intellectual  and  spiritual 
alike,  in  conclusions  reached  through  the  medium 
of  scientific  investigation.  For  this  reason  many 
of  the  deductions  of  science  are  indifferent  or 
neutral  in  so  far  as  ultimate  principles  are  in 
question.  They  formulate  new  discoveries  in  re- 
gard to  the  facts  or  the  laws  of  the  natural  world ; 
often  they  further  man's  welfare  or  better  the 
conditions  of  his  existence :  but  since  of  them- 
selves they  suggest  no  inferences  beyond  the 
bounds  of  empirical  nature,  they  may  be  left  out 
of  account  when  the  issues  of  deeper  import  are  at 
stake.  Other  scientific  results  do  affect  the  de- 
cision of  fundamental  problems.  But  their  influ- 
ence, as  has  already  been  suggested  and  as  we 
shall  shortly  have  occasion  to  discuss  the  matter 


04        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

in  greater  detail,  is  for  the  most  part  an  indirect 
one.  They  alter  the  view  of  the  physical  world 
which  in  the  light  of  previous  knowledge  had  been 
accepted  as  correct ;  they  affect  the  analysis  of  the 
mental  life,  which  in  part  must  be  taken  as  the 
foundation  for  our  beliefs  concerning  spiritual  veri- 
ties ;  they  change  the  current  theories  of  political 
and  social  organization  into  new  forms  and  state- 
ments ;  they  render  necessary  the  revision  of 
philosophical  and  theological  principles  to  con- 
form to  the  newly  discovered  facts.  These  effects, 
however,  they  accomplish  not  so  much  by  their 
action  within  their  own  field  as  in  virtue  of  the 
relations  which  science  sustains  to  other  depart- 
ments of  thought.  Therefore  in  the  opening  chapter 
of  this  treatise,  we  were  able  with  justice  to  con- 
clude that  the  precise  character  of  a  transitional 
era  of  science  must  remain  unknown  until  reflec- 
tion shall  have  so  entirely  taken  on  the  scientific 
cast  that  an  upheaval  in  the  realm  of  science  shall 
be  equivalent  to  a  revolution  in  thought  at  large.1 

Prior  to  such  a  development  of  culture,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  determine  aught  but  a  few  of  the 
most  general  features  of  a  scientific  renaissance, 
and  this  only  by  arguing  from  the  analogy  of  other 
types  of  thought.     Of  greater  importance  for  the 

1  Chap.  I.,  pp.  8-9. 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  95 

present  discussion  is  the  second  —  and  again  a 
negative  —  reason  for  the  failure  of  science  hitherto 
to  participate  directly  in  the  great  historical  transi- 
tions in  opinion  —  the  absence  of  successful  chal- 
lenge to  the  methods  of  scientific  investigation. 
In  its  inception  this  method  was  itself  a  product 
of  reaction,  for  it  was  formulated  in  opposition  to 
the  deductive  method  of  inquiry,  just  as  its  early 
defenders  revolted  from  the  content  of  the  think- 
ing that  was  cast  in  the  deductive  mould.  Since 
that  time  it  has  been  developed  through  three  cen- 
turies and  more  of  scientific  activity,  passing  from 
less  perfect  to  more  complete  and  accurate  forms  and 
finding  adaptation  to  ever  widening  and  varying 
fields  of  research.  And  as  it  has  experienced  these 
changes  in  the  course  of  its  history,  —  from  its 
employment  by  Roger  Bacon,  the  monk,  and 
Francis  Bacon,  the  greater  of  the  name,  down  to 
the  scientists  and  logicians  of  the  present  age,  — 
so  also  it  has  been  the  instrument  of  many  revo- 
lutions in  scientific  theory.  Yet  it  has  not  been 
called  on  to  endure  the  test  of  successful  attack. 
Although  its  applicability  to  all  subjects  of  inquiry 
has  been  legitimately  brought  into  question,  and 
vigorous  defence  has  been  made  of  the  claims  of 
other  methods  to  be  considered  in  the  ascertainment 
of  different  forms  of  truth,  within  its  own  field  the 


96        TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

inductive  x  method  of  inquiry  still  rules  supreme. 
It  is  now  more  securely  established  than  in  the 
days  of  its  early  promulgation.  Then  it  was 
advocated  with  the  ardor  of  new  discipleship,  in 
contrast  to  the  waning  fortunes  of  a  dying  system 
—  now  it  is  extolled  with  the  assurance  which 
comes  with  achieved  success.  Thus  there  has 
never  been  a  period  of  sceptical  doubt  concerning 
the  competence  of  science  to  solve  its  own  prob- 
lems, or  the  validity  of  its  authoritatively  sanc- 
tioned results  ;  and  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  judge 
at  present,  no  such  crisis  is  to  be  anticipated  in  the 
future.  When  one  scientific  principle  or  body  of 
scientific  conclusions  is  substituted  for  another, 
the  possibility  of  scientific  knowledge  altogether 
is  not  called  in  question,  as  more  than  once  it  has 
been  the  unhappy  fate  of  other  forms  of  reflec- 
tive thinking  to  be  made  the  objects  of  destruc- 
tive criticism.  The  scientific  investigator  is  not 
haunted  by  the  lurking  suspicion  that  after  all  his 
work  may  be  illusory,  because  it  is  given  to  no 
finite  mind  to  reach  the  truths  which  form  the 
goal  of  his  inquiries.  If  a  mistake  is  made,  it  is 
incidental  to  the  general  fallibility  of  human  think- 
ing. If  a  new  discovery  takes  the  place  of  some 
time-honored    theory,  thought  does  not  dwell  in 

1  Inductive,  of  course,  in  the  hroad  sense  of  the  term. 


SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT  97 

sadness  on  the  limitations  of  human  intelligence, 
but  rejoices  that  once  more  an  addition  has  been 
made  to  the  long  series  of  triumphs  over  the  mys- 
teries of  nature.  In  neither  case  is  there,  or  at 
least  has  there  been  so  far,  the  harassing  anxiety 
whether  the  investigation  itself  is  vain.  The  most 
poignant  distress  engendered  by  transitions  in 
thought  is  therefore  unfamiliar  to  the  scientific 
mind  ;  and  so  long  as  such  conditions  continue  to 
hold  good,  science  may  be  expected,  in  virtue  of 
this  characteristic  also,  to  remain  an  indirect 
source  of  changes  in  opinion  rather  than  an  imme- 
diate participant  in  them. 

These  limitations  of  the  influence  which  science 
exerts  upon  other  forms  of  intellectual  activity  are 
more  than  balanced,  however,  by  the  extent  and 
the  magnitude  of  its  effects.  In  the  history  of 
modern  reflection  there  have  been  few  movements 
of  an  intellectual  kind  that  can  be  compared  with 
it  in  respect  of  its  bearings  on  the  genesis  of 
opinion.  It  is  commonly  believed  that  the  present 
time  is  beyond  all  others  the  era  of  scientific  prog- 
ress, the  period  in  which  thought  has  most  fully 
submitted  to  the  guidance  of  the  scientific  spirit. 
But  although  this  conclusion  is  for  the  most  part 
certainly  true,  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
present   is  unique  among  the  subordinate  periods 


98        TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

which  together  make  up  the  modern  age.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  in  its  earlier  decades  the  nine- 
teenth century  was  marked  by  the  boldest,  and  for 
the  time  being  well-nigh  the  most  successful,  devel- 
opment of  speculative  philosophy  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  it  is  noteworthy  that  this  age  is  not 
the  only  one  which  has  felt  the  weight  of  scientific 
control.  The  evidence  for  this  conclusion  has  been 
in  part  presented  in  the  preceding  chapter.1  Here 
therefore  it  will  be  necessary  only  to  complete  the 
argument,  by  citing  a  few  supplementary  facts  in 
corroboration  of  the  position  that  the  scientific 
movement,  which  in  our  time  has  found  its  culmi- 
nation, has  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  been  charac- 
teristic of  modern  thinking  as  a  whole.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  era  the  revolt  from  medievalism 
was  in  considerable  measure  the  result  of  a  demand 
for  the  study  of  the  natural  world:  when  men 
wearied  of  the  abstract  methods  of  the  Scholastic 
reasoning  and  its  arid  results,  they  turned  with 
eager  interest  to  the  investigation  of  the  world 
around  them,  just  as  the  attractions  of  the  new 
form  of  inquiry,  once  felt,  drew  them  irresistibly 
away  from  the  pursuit  of  the  older  metaphysic. 
The  speculative  philosophers  of  the  seventeenth 
century  often  experienced  the  force  of   the  same 

1  Chap.  II.,  pp.  69-73,  76-80. 


SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT  99 

influence,  even  when  they  did  not  give  them- 
selves entirely  to  its  service,  —  witness,  for  in- 
stance, the  devotion  of  Descartes  to  scientific 
problems,  or  the  early  development  of  modern 
materialism  by  thinkers  such  as  Hobbes  and  Gas- 
sencli.  On  the  border  line  between  the  seven- 
teenth century  and  the  eighteenth,  Locke,  despite 
his  underestimation  of  the  certainty  of  inductive 
inquiry,  echoed  the  Baconian  spirit  in  its  appli- 
cation to  mind,1  and  escaped  the  sceptical  conse- 
quences of  his  empiricism,  in  part  by  adopting  as 
metaphysical  reality  the  world  which  science  had 
revealed.  In  the  eighteenth  century  Deism  derived 
one  of  the  motives  for  its  existence  from  the  dis- 
coveries of  British  scientists,  while  acquaintance 
with  them  constituted  one  of  the  principal  sources 
of  the  French  Enlightenment.2  And  in  more  recent 
times,  even  though  the  scientific  movement  is  to  be 
counted  a  development  from  these  earlier  condi- 
tions rather  than  a  new  creation,  it  has  greatly 
enlarged  its  boundaries  and  consolidated  its  power. 
In  France  it  has  continued  to  give  the  keynote  to 
thought.  In  Germany  it  first  served  as  the  chief 
agent  in  the  destruction  of  the  a  priori  systems, 
and   then   filled  the  void  created   by  their  disap- 

1  Cf.  Falckenberg,  op.  cit.,  pp.  155,  175. 

2  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp.  61,  70. 


100      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

pearance  with  investigations  and  speculations  con- 
ducted under  its  own  auspices.  In  Britain  and 
America  it  has  numbered  famous  names  among 
its  votaries,  has  led  to  results  amazing  at  once 
because  of  the  insight  into  nature  which  they 
reveal  and  because  of  the  extent  of  their  influence 
in  the  development  of  contemporary  opinion,  and 
allying  itself  or  being  brought  into  alliance  with 
the  traditional  English  metaphysic  has  secured  for 
the  latter  a  new  lease  of  power  in  the  world. 

The  reasons  for  this  extensive  influence  of  science 
are  in  part  to  be  found  in  the  nature  of  the  methods 
which  science  employs,  in  part  they  depend  upon 
the  character  and  the  bearings  of  the  conclusions 
at  which  it  arrives.  The  question  of  method  has 
already  been  considered  in  sufficient  detail ;  and 
apart  from  the  conditions  of  the  present  discussion, 
it  is  important  to  note  that  the  content  of  empirical 
thinking  has  been  of  momentous  significance  for 
the  progress  of  modern  reflection.  This  holds  good 
not  only  of  the  constructive  effects  of  scientific 
theories,  but  also  of  their  negative  implications. 
In  many  cases  the  special  results  of  research  have 
conflicted,  or  have  seemed  to  conflict,  with  prin- 
ciples essential  to  the  integrity  of  philosophical  or 
religious  belief.  From  the  beginnings  of  modern 
thought,  when   the   new   astronomy  appeared   to 


SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT  101 

overthrow  the  very  foundations  of  faith  concern- 
ing the  celestial  world,  down  through  the  debates 
occasioned  by  the  discoveries  of  physics  and  chem- 
istry, geology  and  anthropology,  to  the  controver- 
sies just  ending,  or  still  continued,  over  the  bearing 
of  the  new  biology  on  our  views  of  the  world  and 
man,1  to  the  suggestions  of  the  new  psychology  in 
regard  to  mental  life,  to  the  later  theories  of  society 
which  attack  the  traditional  principles  alike  of  the 
political  and  of  the  moral  order,2  —  the  successive 
advances  of  science,  by  reason  of  their  discrepancy 
with  accepted  views,  have  occasioned  intellectual 
conflicts  more  or  less  permanent  in  their  conse- 
quences, but  always  serious  while  they  have  lasted 
and  provocative  of  anxiety  beyond  the  limits  of 
their  legitimate  influence. 

In  addition  to  its  particular  effects,  the  influence 
of  scientific  discovery  on  the  general  theory  of  the 
world  has  been  of  moment.  According  to  the 
strict  interpretation,  it  is  true  that  the  sum  of 
accepted  scientific  principles  is  no  more  than  a 
system  of  correlated  conclusions  concerning  phe- 
nomena, but  this,  as  has  already  been  intimated,3 
is  related  in  the  closest  possible  way  to  metaphysi- 
cal and   even  to  theological  views.      For,  in  the 

1  Cf .  below,  pp.  12G-129 ;  also,  chap.  IV.,  pp.  157  ff.,  chap. 
VII.,  pp.  325-326.  2  Cf .  chap.  V.  8  pp.  90-92. 


102      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

first  place,  it  is  evident  that  at  the  lowest  terms 
science  implies  assumptions  which  transcend  the 
limits  of  merely  phenomenal  truth,  —  thinkers  of 
every  school  now  recognize  the  necessity  for  pos- 
tulating, at  very  least,  the  principles  of  logic  and 
the  existence  of  an  order  of  nature,  —  and  that 
the  outcome  of  science,  in  the  form  of  established 
empirical  results,  constitutes  a  large  and  important 
part  of  the  data  on  which  the  work  of  speculation 
has  to  proceed.  The  history  of  modern  thought, 
once  more,  is  filled  with  proofs  of  the  facility  with 
which  the  scientific  view  of  things  passes  over  into 
a  metaphysical  doctrine.1  Sometimes  it  is  broadly 
maintained  that  science  in  and  of  itself  forms  such 
a  system  of  philosophy,  an  empirical,  mechanical, 
materialistic,  atheistic  theory  of  the  world  and 
human  life.  This  position  no  doubt  is  an  extreme 
one.  Science  as  such  is  not  philosophy,  though 
many  thinkers  of  later  times  have  chosen  to  ignore 
the  fact;  still  less  is  it  any  one  of  the  various 
philosophical  systems  in  particular.  But  unques- 
tionably it  tends  to  become  philosophy,  or  a  sub- 
stitute therefor,  and  it  lends  itself  to  the  support 
of  the  negative,  mechanical,  and  materialistic  type 
of  speculation, — especially  when  it  is  raised  without 
critical  interpretation  into  a  theory  of  the  ultimate 

i  Cf.  chap.  II.,  p.  78. 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  103 

nature  of  things,  —  rather  than  to  the  furtherance 
of   systems  of   an  a  priori   or   a   spiritual    kind. 
Finally,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  legitimate  objection 
lies  not  so  much  against  the  actual  transformation 
of  science  into  philosophy  as  against  the  nature  of 
the  process  by  which  too  often  this  is  effected  and 
the  extent  to  which  it  is  carried  out.     For  which 
of  all  the  products  of  modern  thinking  has  a  clearer 
title  to  be  considered  in  the  framing  of  answers  to 
the  fundamental  questions  than  that  type  of  intel- 
lectual effort  which  is  the  glory  of  the  age  ?     And 
what  truths  can  bear  more  directly,  or  more  co- 
gently,  upon   the   solution   of   ultimate   problems 
than   the   well-ascertained    and    precisely   formu- 
lated conclusions  of  science  concerning  the  natural 
world  ?     Science,  therefore,  and  scientific  thinkers 
enjoy  a  full  right  to  influence  the  course  of  philo- 
sophical reflection.     They  deserve  to  be  welcomed 
into   the   philosophical   field.      Only   it   must   be 
emphasized  that,  since  the  two  spheres  of  inquiry 
are  radically  different,  the  presuppositions  of  the 
investigation,  the  methods  of  procedure,  and  the 
standards  of  result,  will  also  widely  differ  —  and 
insisted  above  all  that  it  is  neither  scientific  nor 
philosophical   to  transfer  the  conclusions  reached 
in  the  one  department  of  thought  without  analysis 
and  criticism  to  the  other,  in  the  expectation  that 


104      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

they  will  prove  as  valuable,  as  authoritative,  and 
as  decisive  there  as  in  the  field  to  which  they 
immediately  belong.  Such  a  procedure,  although 
it  is  frequently  attempted,  recalls  the  fallacies  of 
mediae valism,  from  which  science  is  believed  to 
have  delivered  the  modern  mind.  It  might  be 
going  too  far  to  call  it  verbalism,  but  it  certainly 
is  not  thought.1 

But  in  spite  of  all  the  triumphs  of  the  new  man- 
ner of  regarding  the  world  and  our  method  of  pry- 
ing into  nature's  secrets,  is  it  not  clear  that  the 
influence  of  science  upon  other  forms  of  thought 
has  been  chiefly  of  a  destructive  kind  ?  Does  not 
the  brief  summary  that  has  just  been  given  itself 
imply  the  negative  bearing  of  scientific  thinking, 
in  so  far  as  it  at  all  affects  the  development  of 
opinion  ?  In  the  attempt  to  find  answers  to  these 
questions,  a  preliminary  consideration  must  be  kept 
in  mind  which  applies  equally  to  scientific  and  non- 
scientific  reflection,  namely,  that  negative  move- 
ments are  relatively  powerless  unless  the  tendencies 
which  make  for  the  rejection  of  accepted  doctrines 
have  in  them  the  vigor  which  proceeds  from  new 
constructive  ideas.     Probably  there  has  never  been 

1  On  the  meaning  of  science  and  philosophy,  and  the  relations 
of  the  two,  see  G.  T.  Ladd,  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  chap.  I., 
III.-IV. ;  and  J.  H.  W.  Stuckenberg,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
Philosophy,  chap.  I.,  III.-IV. 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  105 

an  era  of  transition  in  which  the  forces  at  work 
have  been  exclusively  destructive.  Even  the  So- 
phistic movement  in  Greece,  for  all  its  unworthy 
doubting,  merited  praise  for  its  success  in  bringing 
into  notice  elements  in  the  philosophical  problem 
which  the  earlier  metaphysicians  had  neglected ; 
while  in  a  more  concrete  way,  through  their  gram- 
matical, rhetorical,  and  logical  inquiries,  by  their 
attention  to  the  art  of  public  speech  and  to  the 
education  of  the  young,  the  Sophists  made  con- 
tribution to  the  intellectual  and  practical  progress 
of  their  native  land.  And  that  which  is  true  of 
transitional  ages  in  the  large  holds  good,  also,  of 
the  various  factors  in  the  intellectual  movement. 
Mere  denial  may  succeed  for  a  time,  but  unless  it 
is  based  upon  positive  principles,  or  allied  with 
such,  its  influence  passes,  leaving  little  trace  upon 
the  history  of  culture.  Conversely,  when  a  form 
of  thought  is  found  to  have  affected  the  course 
of  intellectual  development  through  considerable 
periods  of  time,  now  diverting  opinion  from  the 
ancient  ways,  now  guiding  it  into  unwonted  chan- 
nels, it  may  confidently  be  expected  to  show  on 
examination  an  inherent  constructive  power. 

In  any  special  account  of  science,  moreover,  and 
in  any  just  estimate  of  its  value,  two  factors  must 
be  carefully  distinguished.     On  the  one  side   are 


106      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

the  crucial  problems  which  have  been  forced  upon 
the  modern  mind  by  the  outcome  of  this,  its  most 
favored  and  most  successful  form  of  intellectual 
endeavor.  These  few  will  seek  to  ignore,  least  of 
all  the  present  writer.  But  they  are  so  manifest 
to  the  student  of  opinion,  they  have  been  so  often 
exploited,  and  they  have  crept  so  subtly  even  into 
this  discussion,  that  it  will  be  a  more  profitable 
as  well  as  a  more  agreeable  task,  leaving  the  nega- 
tive aspect  of  the  question,  to  direct  attention  to 
the  tendencies  in  scientific  thinking  which  have 
reached  a  happier  issue,  or  which  give  promise  of 
positive  results  in  the  future. 

Clearly,  then,  science  has  created  a  view  of  the 
physical  world  which  because  of  its  certainty,  accu- 
racy, and  precision,  because  of  its  fertility  in  the 
promotion  of  discovery,  and  its  utility  in  the  ser- 
vice of  mankind,  entitles  it  to  claim  that  it  has 
successfully  realized  the  ideals  proposed  by  its 
leaders  in  the  dawning  modern  age.  It  has  proved 
successful  also  in  the  investigation  of  internal  na- 
ture, although  the  mental  sciences  remain,  as  per- 
haps they  must  continue  for  the  future,  inferior  in 
point  of  completeness  and  of  certainty  to  the  sci- 
ences of  material  fact.  As  matters  of  theory,  the 
results  of  empirical  inquiry  have  so  closely  approxi- 
mated the  ideal  standards  of  knowledge,  that  the 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  107 

term  "  science  "  is  often  diverted  from  its  etymo- 
logical and  historical  meaning  to  denote  this  spe- 
cific type  of  research  and  the  conclusions  to  which 
it  leads.  On  the  side  of  practice,  it  is  evident  that 
life  has  been  prolonged  and  made  more  valuable 
through  the  labors  of  scientific  inquirers ;  that 
earth  and  air  and  sea  have  been  brought  more 
fully  under  man's  control ;  that  the  material  con- 
ditions of  individual  existence  have  been  rendered 
less  arduous,  and  the  material  progress  of  society 
furthered.  The  world,  scientific  and  non-scientific 
alike,  recognizes  once  more  the  marvellous  expan- 
sion of  thought  which  has  been  accomplished  since 
the  development  and  the  general  adoption  of  the 
inductive  method  of  investigation,  while  many 
contemporary  thinkers  are  more  or  less  clearly 
aware  of  the  fact,  to  which  reference  has  just  been 
made,  that  scientific  conclusions  are  readily  con- 
strued in  terms  of  philosophical  significance. 

This  last  item  in  the  success  of  science  has  been 
shown  to  possess  its  dangers  as  well  as  its  ele- 
ments of  promise.  The  former  deserve  greater  at- 
tention than  in  some  instances  they  have  received. 
But  for  the  present  purpose,  it  is  of  less  importance 
to  dwell  upon  them  than  it  is  to  notice  that  sci- 
ence exerts  a  reflex  influence  on  thought,  which,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  writer,  is  to  be  reckoned  among 


108      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

its  principal  achievements.  For  although  accord- 
ing to  the  strict  definitions  of  the  terms  it  is  neces- 
sary, as  we  have  argued,  to  distinguish  between 
scientific  reasoning  and  philosophical  speculation, 
in  the  broader  sense  science  is  a  real  philosophy. 
That  is  to  say,  its  method  is  based  upon  thought 
processes,  and  its  results  lead  on  to  principiant  con- 
clusions, even  when  in  themselves  they  do  not 
amount  to  definite  principles.  It  is  an  old  error, 
though  one  which  certain  so-called  scientists  have 
done  their  best  to  keep  alive,  that  scientific  work 
depends  upon  the  exercise  of  the  observational, 
rather  than  of  the  rational  faculties.  The  popular 
mind  too  often  thinks  of  the  man  of  science  as  one 
who  peers  up  through  telescopes  or  down  through 
microscopes,  who  manufactures  queer  odors  in 
places  called  laboratories,  or  dissects  unfortunate 
beasts  in  laboratories  of  a  different  sort  and  name, 
and  who  then  takes  pains  exactly  to  record  the 
facts  he  has  observed  —  the  whole  process  in  some 
mysterious  way  at  times  producing  practical  re- 
sults of  a  useful  kind,  at  times  tending  to  subvert 
the  foundations  of  religious  faith.  But  to  the  stu- 
dent of  scientific  method  the  matter  assumes  a 
different  aspect.  The  factors  in  scientific  inquiry 
which  most  appeal  to  his  appreciation  do  not  con- 
sist in  patient  observation   and    experimentation, 


SCIENCE  AND   DOUBT  109 

and  the  registration  of  the  data  thus  obtained, 
however  much  he  may  be  disposed  to  admire  the 
successful  devotion  with  which  these  necessary 
operations  are  performed;  rather  does  he  dwell 
with  pleasure  on  the  scientific  imagination  which 
strikes  out  hypotheses,  fruitful  because  of  their 
very  simplicity  and  audacity  as  well  as  because  of 
the  basis  of  ascertained  fact  which  forms  their 
point  of  departure,  and  most  of  all  he  is  impressed 
by  the  scope,  by  the  brilliancy,  by  the  precision  of 
thought  —  thought  in  the  narrower  meaning  of  the 
term  —  exhibited  by  the  scientists  whose  discover- 
ies have  made  the  modern  age  illustrious.  Coper- 
nicus and  Kepler  and  Galileo  and  Newton,  —  to 
select  a  few  names  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
layman  in  science,  —  Linnseus  and  Cuvier  and 
Humboldt,  Dalton  and  Kirchhoff  and  Bunsen, 
Helmholtz  and  Clerk-Maxwell,  Darwin  and  Wal- 
lace, and  the  late  theorists  of  biological  evolution, 
Pasteur  and  Koch, — no  mere  empirics  these,  but 
intellectual  leaders  in  whom  patience  in  research 
has  been  well  mated  with  the  highest  powers  of 
correlating  thought,  synthetic  thinkers  in  the 
strictest  sense,  philosophers,  if  the  word  be  under- 
stood to  include  all  thinkers  of  comprehensive 
grasp  and  combining  faculty  as  well  as  those  who 
devote  themselves  specifically  to  speculative  reflec- 


110      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

tion.  The  case  is  evident,  again,  if  the  results  of 
science  are  considered  instead  of  the  master  minds. 
The  heliocentric  astronomy,  the  law  of  gravitation, 
the  atomic  theory,  the  conservation  and  correlation 
of  energy,  the  evolutionary  theory  of  the  origin  of 
species,  the  discoveries  of  solar  physics,  the  germ 
theory  of  disease  —  conclusions  of  this  kind  are 
principles  which  bring  into  connection  great  masses 
of  facts  previously  isolated,  if  known  at  all,  and 
which  render  further  inference  possible  to  other 
phenomena  distant  in  time  or  remote  in  place. 

These  triumphant  achievements,  moreover,  have 
created  a  new  source  of  confidence  in  the  power  of 
the  mind.  Never  before  in  the  history  of  human 
thinking  has  there  been  given  so  impressive  an 
illustration  of  the  capacity  of  the  mind  for  the  dis- 
covery of  truth.  It  is  especially  worthy  of  notice 
that  in  no  previous  era  of  transition  —  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  in  which  also  science  exercised  a 
constructive  effect,  alone  approximates  the  present 
age  in  this  respect  — x  has  mankind  been  in  pos- 
session of  so  large  and  so  important  a  body  of 
accepted  conclusions.  Thus  amid  all  the  critical 
questionings  of  the  time  science  has  exerted  a 
potent  steadying  influence.  Though  it  has  thrown 
serious   doubt  upon  principles  of   great  value  in 

1  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp.  69-73. 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  111 

other  departments  of  thought  —  within  the  limits 
of  its  own  field  it  has  furnished  so  striking  an  ex- 
ample of  intellectual  power  that  the  age  has  been 
delivered  from  some  of  the  worst  miseries  that 
have  oppressed  mankind  in  other  sceptical  eras.1 
Henceforth,  whatever  may  be  held  to  be  true  con- 
cerning the  possibility  of  knowledge  in  the  sphere 
of  metaphysics  or  theology,  few  will  have  the 
hardihood  to  refuse  credence  to  the  results  arrived 
at  by  the  sciences  of  empirical  fact.  Rarely,  if 
ever  again,  unless  science  itself  should  fail,  are 
men  likely  to  renew  the  wail  of  the  ancient  Sophist, 
Nothing  exists,  and  If  anything  existed,  it  would 
be  unknowable,  and  Even  if  it  were  knowable,  the 
knowledge  could  not  be  communicated.  Such  cries 
of  despair  are  not  put  up  in  times  when  men  are 
busy  in  penetrating  the  mysteries  which  nature  has 
kept  inviolate  since  the  world  began. 

And  this  element  in  the  thought  of  the  period  is 
great  gain.  If  prophesying  were  at  all  in  place, 
the  prediction  might  be  hazarded  that  later  ages 
will  look  back  with  surprise  on  the  failure  of  so 
many  thinkers  of  the  present  time  to  recognize 
these  positive  implications  of  science.  Misled,  the 
historian  of  the  future  will  say,  by  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  newly  discovered  principles  and  certain 
i  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp.  48-52,  76-80. 


112      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

of  their  cherished  beliefs,  many  of  the  choicest 
minds  of  the  later  nineteenth  century  and  the  early 
twentieth  were  blinded  to  the  service  which  science 
rendered  in  saving  their  age  from  utter  mental 
despair ;  in  contrast  to  the  votaries  of  the  new  learn- 
ing, who  too  often,  with  equal  misapprehension  of 
the  truth,  supposed  that  all  man's  spiritual  need 
could  be  supplied  by  nourishing  his  soul  on  a  diet 
of  general  laws.  It  must  be  acknowledged,  indeed, 
that  the  matter  is  viewed  by  many  philosophical 
thinkers  in  a  different  light  from  that  in  which  it 
appeals  to  the  popular  consciousness,  or  even  to 
the  leaders  of  scientific  opinion.  To  the  former 
the  bearing  of  discovery  on  the  value  of  knowledge 
suggests  some  of  the  most  central  and  most  critical 
problems  of  epistemological  theory.  In  particular, 
philosophy  is  compelled  to  consider  whether  the 
ultimate  validity  of  thought  is  a  question  in  regard 
to  which  evidence  of  a  merely  experiential  kind 
can  possess  any  cogency  whatsoever.  For  in  the 
last  analysis,  how  can  the  trustworthiness  of  mental 
faculty  be  established  by  a  process  of  reasoning  in 
which  by  the  nature  of  the  case  this  same  faculty 
is  involved  ?  And  is  it  not  necessary  in  some  sort 
to  postulate  the  truth  of  cognition  in  order  that 
thought  may  proceed  at  all,  even  that  thinking  by 
which   the  value  of  intelligence  is  to  be  tested  ? 


SCIENCE   AND   DOUBT  113 

But  in  whatsoever  sense  the  answers  to  these  fun- 
damental questions  may  fall  out,  the  historical 
consequences  of  the  progress  of  science  are  beyond 
dispute.  Notwithstanding  the  difficulty  of  the 
problem  considered  as  a  matter  of  speculative  the- 
ory, in  practice  the  success  of  empirical  inquiry  has 
served  to  check  the  development  of  scepticism  in 
its  universal  forms,  just  as  the  absence  of  a  body 
of  established  principles,  and  the  contradictions  in 
opinion  which  accompanied  this  lack,  have  proved 
a  prolific  source  of  sceptical  theories  in  earlier  ages 
of  the  world.1 

Similar  conclusions  hold  —  the  doubt  with  added 
force 2  —  in  regard  to  a  second  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  modern  reflection,  the  belief  in  a  fixed 
order  of  the  world.  This  postulate  has  been  called 
by  various  names,  the  unity  or  uniformity  or  con- 
stancy of  nature,  the  system  or  order  of  nature, 
the  existence  of  laws  of  nature,  etc. ;  and,  in  thesis, 
it  is  not  a  new  conception  of  the  modern  age,  but  a 
very  ancient  conviction,  which  in  later  times  has 
gained  enormously  in  prominence  and  power.  For, 
largely  in  consequence  of  the  successful  activity  of 
science,  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  world-order 

i  Cf.  chap.  IT.,  pp.  48-52. 

2  For  an  example  of  many  discussions  of  this  phase  of  the  sub- 
ject, see  Lotze,  Melaphysik  (1879),  "  Einleitung,"  §§  III.  ff. 


114      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

has  become  entrenched  in  modern  thinking  to  so 
remarkable  a  degree  that  it  now  commands  the 
unquestioning  assent  of  all  instructed  minds.  In 
fact,  it  might  seriously  be  urged  that  the  principle 
has  advanced  beyond  the  stage  of  a  necessary 
assumption  and,  at  least  in  the  case  of  many,  at- 
tained the  position  of  a  dogma.  A  century  and 
a  half  ago  Hume  himself  abated  somewhat  his 
destructive  criticism,  in  favor  of  the  idea  of  uni- 
formity in  so  far  as  it  lies  at  the  basis  of  common 
knowledge  and  phenomenal  inquiry ;  the  numerous 
body  of  later  thinkers  who  in  considerable  measure 
have  inherited  his  spirit  in  this  instance  extend 
the  positive  reasonings  of  the  master,  as  they  in- 
clude the  doctrine  of  uniformity  among  their  rather 
scanty  stock  of  fixed  beliefs.  The  exaggeration  of 
the  position  may  be  a  legitimate  subject  of  regret, 
as  regret  must  also  be  felt  in  view  of  the  difficul- 
ties in  the  sphere  of  morals  and  faith  which  the 
principle,  even  in  its  most  careful  formulations,  is 
liable  to  evoke.  But  as  in  regard  to  thought  at 
large,  so  also  in  regard  to  this  first  principle  of 
both  knowledge  and  existence,  there  is  a  large 
entry  to  be  made  on  the  credit  side  of  the  balance- 
sheet  in  offset  to  any  possible  losses. 

More  debatable  ground  is  reached  when  attention 
is  directed  to  the  effects  of  scientific  reflection  upon 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  115 

the  principles  of  ethical  and  spiritual  life.  Few 
questions  have  been  so  much  canvassed  in  recent 
times,  as  few  have  stood  in  so  great  need  of  dis- 
cussion, as  the  questions  which  concern  the  relation 
of  science  to  these  last  and  most  important  inter- 
ests of  mankind.  For  in  the  broadest  way,  it  has 
been  necessary  to  inquire  whether  science  is  alto- 
gether in  conflict  with  these,  and  if  taken  in  its 
literal,  or  even  in  any  fair  interpretation,  it  tends 
to  nullify  or  destroy  them,  or  whether,  on  the 
other  hand,  and  quite  apart  from  the  endeavors  of 
the  professional  "  reconcilers  "  to  force  a  complete 
and  exact  adjustment  between  the  two  depart- 
ments of  thought,  it  includes  in  this  region  also 
tendencies  of  a  reconstructive  kind.  Queries  like 
these  will  press  for  consideration  more  than  once 
in  the  course  of  this  investigation,  but  since  the 
matter  is  germane  to  the  present  argument,  it  may 
here  be  remarked  in  a  preliminary  way  that,  to 
some  extent  at  least,  the  answers  may  be  expected 
to  prove  affirmative.  At  least  in  so  far  as  the 
researches  of  science,  or  inferences  based  upon  them, 
have  revealed  the  inherent  correlation  of  natural 
and  spiritual  truth,  or  have  thrown  fresh  light  on 
this  connection  in  cases  where  it  was  already 
known,  at  least  to  this  extent  there  is  justice  in 
the  claim  that  through  their  aid  the  foundations 


11G      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS    IN   THOUGHT 

of  morals  and  religion  have  been  strengthened. 
The  critical  ethical  antinomies,  for  instance,  which 
have  been  created  or  brought  into  prominence  by 
"  scientific  "  ethics  have  beyond  all  question  been 
a  source  of  painful  anxiety  for  the  contemporary 
moralist ;  but  a  partial,  if  only  a  partial,  return  for 
his  loss  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  truths 
for  whose  safety  he  is  most  concerned  have  been 
shown  in  general  to  correspond  to  the  principles  of 
science,  and  this  in  an  age  when  science  has  been 
the  dominant  factor  in  thought.  In  regard  to  the 
influence  of  science  on  religion,  the  most  remark- 
able phenomenon  of  recent  years  has  not  been  the 
continuance  of  doubt  touching  religious  truth,  but 
the  production  of  evidence  by  science  itself,  —  by 
psychology  and  anthropology,  by  sociology,  by  the 
new-born  science  of  religion,  —  in  proof  of  the  inte- 
gral and  essential  position  of  religion  in  individual 
life  and  human  society.1 

In  this  way  science  has  contributed  to  the  re- 
coil from  doubt  which  distinguished  the  closing 
decades  of  the  nineteenth  century  from  its  middle 
and  third  quarters.2  It  is  noteworthy,  moreover, 
that  the  movement  back  toward   faith   has  been 

i  Cf.  chap.  VI.,  pp.  253-256. 

2  Cf .  "  The  Return  to  Faith  "  by  the  writer,  Methodist  Review, 
January,  1896,  pp.  66-76. 


SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT  117 

furthered  not  by  particular  forms  of  scientific 
theory  alone,  but  by  the  development  of  scientific 
thought  at  large.  This  is  especially  true  in  regard 
to  the  question  of  theistic  belief.  For  not  only  are 
neo-theists  found  among  the  ranks  of  scientific 
inquirers,  —  this  was  to  be  expected  after  the  first 
effect  of  the  new  discoveries  had  somewhat  spent 
its  force  and  man's  instinctive  tendency  toward 
religion  had  begun  to  reassert  its  power,  —  but 
science  itself,  as  ever  leading  on  to  speculative 
reflection,  supplies  new  motives,  if  we  should  not 
rather  call  them  fresh  reasons,  for  belief  in  God. 
Foremost  here  is  the  impulse  which  science  at  the 
close  of  its  nineteenth-century  development  gives 
to  the  postulation  of  some  sort  of  a  unitary  ground 
of  the  world.  This,  it  must  be  remarked  in 
passing,  has  not  always  been  the  case,  since,  in 
spite  of  the  general  unifying  tendencies  of  science, 
there  are  certain  scientific  principles  which  at  first 
sight  lend  assistance  to  individualistic  views.  The 
analysis  of  matter  into  independent  atoms,  for 
instance,  or  into  discrete  particles  of  any  sort,  has 
often  secured  the  assent  of  scholars  who  have 
given  little  heed  to  the  difficult  speculative  prob- 
lems which  surround  the  assumption  of  the  full 
independence  of  the  constituent  elements  of 
physical  reality,  or  to  the  hints  which  their  cor- 


118      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

relation  yields  at  the  existence  of  a  deeper  under- 
lying unity.  And  strangely  enough,  certain 
developments  of  mental  science  have  favored 
similar  conclusions :  the  mind  can  be  resolved  into 
a  congeries  of  sensations,  so  not  a  few  of  the 
philosophers  have  held  (or  hold  to-day),  and  many 
scientific  theorists  have  welcomed  the  doctrine  as 
consonant  with  their  own  results.  Even  the 
earlier  social  movements  often  lacked  that  em- 
phatic suggestion  of  solidarity  which  has  become 
so  characteristic  of  sociological  thinking  in  the 
present  age.  Later  discoveries,  however,  have 
brought  with  them  a  corrective  of  any  purely 
individualistic  or  atomistic  view  of  the  universe. 
In  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  and  correlation 
of  energy,  for  example,  physics  has  found  a  first 
principle  which  so  binds  all  the  conclusions  of  ma- 
terial science  into  a  system  that,  instinctively  or  on 
reflection,  the  mind  refuses  to  rest  content  with 
the  resolution  of  the  world  into  a  collection  of 
discrete  particles,  without  a  unif}ring  basis.  The 
theory  of  the  luminiferous  ether,  and  the  specula- 
tions which  cluster  round  it,  tend  to  reduce  all 
forms  of  material  existence  to  manifestations  of 
an  actual  physical  unity.  The  principle  of  biologi- 
cal evolution  has  revealed  a  unity  of  descent  in 
the  world  of  organic  life,  the   extension   of   the 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  119 

principle  of  development  to  all  terrestrial,  and 
even  to  all  cosmical  phenomena,  has  wrought  the 
idea  of  unity  in  progress  into  the  general  thought 
of  the  age.  Over  scientific  inquiry  of  every  kind 
hovers  with  increasing  power  the  idea  of  law,  until 
the  manifold  elements  of  the  visible  universe  are 
brought  into  a  network  of  relations  so  closely 
woven :  that  the  neglect  to  postulate  some  deeper 
principle  in  explanation  of  the  fact  becomes  a 
refusal  to  draw  any  conclusion  whatsoever  from 
the  data  in  the  case. 

In  criticism  of  such  positions,  it  may  be  con- 
tended that  the  inference  suggested  is  at  best 
unclear  and  imperfectly  developed.  And  undoubt- 
edly the  objection  carries  weight.  The  idea  of  a 
unity  at  the  basis  of  the  world  or,  in  the  more 
technical  language  of  philosophy,  the  idea  of  a 
unitary  world-ground,  is  one  of  those  ultimate 
conceptions  which  in  themselves  involve  peculiar 
difficulties,  and  which  make  their  appeal  to  a  much 
larger  number  of  minds  than  is  the  list  of  those 
who  could  define  them  or  defend  them  successfully 
against  sceptical  detraction.  Nevertheless,  the 
trend  of  thought  is  unmistakable,  and  its  impor- 
tance in  the  decision  of  questions  of  faith.  For 
here  the  results  of  scientific  inquiry  reinforce  the 

1  Cf.  above,  pp.  113-114. 


120      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    IX   THOUGHT 

metaphysical  impulse  which  constitutes  one  of  the 
fundamental  tendencies  toward  theistic  belief.     In 
this  the  reflective  efforts  of  the  popular  conscious- 
ness  and   the   more  formal  endeavors  of  philoso- 
phers to  secure  an  ultimate  interpretation  of  the 
world  unite,  seeing  that  human  thought  at  large 
instinctively  tends  to  culminate  in  the  idea  of  an 
Infinite  Oneness.     This  idea,  moreover,  declines  to 
remain  a  mere  conception,  but  steadily  presses  on 
toward  belief  in  the  existence  of  the  Infinite  that 
has   been   conceived.     In   spite,  therefore,  of   the 
intricacy  of   the   problem,  nearly   all   systems   of 
thought  which  in  any  degree  rise  above  the  atom- 
istic  level   assume   some   such   principle  as   their 
point  of  departure  or  number  it  among  their  final 
conclusions.     The   materialist   elevates   Matter  or 
Nature  or  Force  into  a  position  of  quasi  supremacy : 
the  idealist  of  one  type  reduces  all  things  to  mani- 
festations of  an  Eternal  Mind,  while  his  fellow  in 
name,  though  not  in  doctrine,   conceives  the  uni- 
verse as  a  system  of  Intellectual  Concepts  or  the 
outflowing  of  an  Infinite  Spiritual  Process.     Dual- 
ism commonly  finds  its  completion  in  the  exist- 
ence of  an  Infinite  Spirit,  on  whom  finite  minds  and 
finite  things  are  alike  dependent.     And  now  scien- 
tific inquiry  joins  hands  with  the  primal  theistic 
impulse.     Nowhere  is  the  strength  of  the  alliance 


SCIENCE   AND   DOUBT  121 

better  exemplified  than  in  the  philosophy  of  Herbert 
Spencer  and  his  followers,  who  take  to  themselves 
especial  credit  for  conducting  their  investigations 
in  accordance  with  the  methods  of  science  and  for 
basing  their  speculative  conclusions  on  scientific 
premises.  Much  more  impressive  than  the  reasons 
adduced  by  the  members  of  this  school  for  their 
belief  in  an  "Incomprehensible  Power"1  is  the 
steady  drift  of  their  thinking  toward  the  accept- 
ance of  the  postulate,  in  contrast  to  their  agnostic 
attitude  in  relation  to  other  transcendent  questions. 
Very  different  in  this  respect  is  the  English  ag- 
nosticism of  the  day  from  the  eighteenth-century 
scepticism  of  which  it  is  the  lineal  descendant. 
The  latter  was  at  pains  to  involve  all  principles 
except  those  of  practical  experience  in  the  toils 
of  its  doubt ;  but  the  great  agnostic  leader  of  the 
present  time  knows'-  an  "unknowable"  Absolute 
that  exists,  that  is  one,  that  is  a  power,  that  forms 
the  oround  of  the  relative  world.3  The  advance 
in  the  direction  of  more  positive  views  of  knowl- 
edge and  of  more  constructive  conclusions  concern- 

1  Cf.  Spencer,  First  Principles  (6th  ed.,  1900),  §  26. 

2  Or  rather  has  "  an  indefinite  consciousness  "  of  it.  First 
Principles  (6th  ed.),  §  26,  and  "  Postscript  to  Part  I." 

•First  Principles,  §§26,  27,  191,  194;  Principles  of  Sociolo(i>h 
§§  659,  660.  Cf.  .1.  Ward,  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  vol.  II., 
pp.  267  ff. ;  R.  Flint,  Agnosticism,  pp.  629-(i:::». 


122      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

ing  the  Infinite  is  marked.  And  it  is  scarcely  to 
be  questioned  that  the  marvellous  progress  of 
science  in  the  interval,  and  the  character  of  its 
results,  have  played  an  important  part  alike  in 
promoting  the  increase  of  confidence  in  the  power 
of  thought  and  in  leading  to  the  metaphysical 
inference. 

The  theistic  implications  of  science,  however, 
comprise  more  than  this  primary  principle.  Not 
only  are  they  adapted  to  confirm  the  belief  in 
some  sort  of  a  ground  of  the  world,  but  they 
add  a  qualitative  determination  of  its  nature.  For 
if  it  is  allowable  to  base  any  inference  whatever 
in  regard  to  the  Absolute  on  the  data  which  sci- 
ence supplies,  we  can  hardly  refuse  to  advance 
from  the  assumption  of  an  infinite  unity  in  gen- 
eral to  the  conception  of  this  Infinite  as  active. 
Power,  Cause,  Force,  Energy,  such  are  the  desig- 
nations for  the  Supreme  Being  which  science 
suggests,  and  such  the  idea  of  its  nature  which 
it  presses  home  upon  seekers  after  truth.  Even 
the  agnosticism  which  is  based  upon  science 
finds  it  impossible,  as  Ave  have  seen,  to  refrain 
from  describing  the  "Inscrutable,"  the  existence 
of  which  it  assumes,  in  terms  of  the  dynamism 
habitual  to  it  in  thinking  of  things  at  large. 
Thus  the  conception  of   the  Absolute  which  fol- 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  123 

lows  from  reflection  on  our  present  knowledge 
of  the  phenomenal  world  is  radically  different 
from  views  in  favor  during  the  earlier  portions 
of  the  modern  era.  In  those  early  days  science 
itself  had  not  completed  its  escape  from  the  static 
notion  of  the  universe  which  had  been  handed 
down  to  it  from  antiquity ;  now  it  is  dynamic 
to  the  core.  The  world  is  looked  upon  as  a 
scene  of  universal  activity.  Matter  is  held  by 
many  competent  thinkers  to  be  the  phenomenon 
of  which  force  or  energy  is  the  ultimate  under- 
lying reality.  The  fundamental  implications  of 
scientific  investigation  are  causal  and  genetic 
rather  than  substantial  or  attributive,  and  scien- 
tific conclusions  are  laws,  laws  for  the  most  part 
of  action  and  change.  Empirical  inquiry,  there- 
fore, issues  in  principles  of  the  dynamic  order, 
even  as  it  starts  from  them ;  and  any  form  of 
metaphysics  which  counts  the  outcome  of  science 
among  its  important  data  finds  itself  constrained 
to  take  earnest  notice  of  the  dynamical  analysis. 
It  is  almost  superfluous  to  add  that  this  line 
of  thought  is  in  harmony  with  many  of  the  later 
developments  of  philosophical  speculation.  Some- 
times a  dynamic  theory  of  the  universe  has  been 
reached  through  abstract  metaphysical  reflection, 
as  when  Fichte,  starting  from  the  Kantian  posi- 


124      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

tions,  developed  the  Idealism  of  free  moral  activity, 
or  Schopenhauer  substituted  his  conception  of  the 
world  as  will  and  idea  for  the  intellectualism  of 
Hegel.  Sometimes  the  scientific  and  the  specula- 
tive impulse  join  hands,  and  both  are  brought  into 
correlation  with  the  claims  of  the  heart  and  con- 
science :  so  Lotze,  echoing  in  part  the  active  inter- 
pretation of  reality  which  Leibnitz,  in  anticipation 
of  later  opinion,  opposed  two  centuries  ago  to  the 
substantialism  of  Spinoza,  endeavored  to  combine 
the  scientific  and  the  philosophical,  the  mechanical 
and  the  teleological  views  of  the  world  into  one 
consistent  system. 

There  is  also  no  need  to  discuss  in  detail  the 
metaphysical  cruces  involved  in  the  dynamic  con- 
ception of  the  Absolute.  These  are  quite  as  real 
as  the  questions  which  beset  the  assumption  of 
an  infinite  unity  of  any  kind,  as  real,  also,  though 
possibly  not  so  acute,  as  the  problems  connected 
with  the  argument  for  the  personality  of  the 
Deity,1  —  albeit  many  recent  writers  of  the  nega- 
tive school  appear  to  think  that  their  halfway 
doctrine  of  the  Unknowable  avoids  such  ultimate 
problems  altogether.  But  this  is  not  the  aspect 
of  the  matter  which  is  now  in  question.  It  is  with 
the  constructive  intimations  of  science  touching 
1  Cf.  J.  Fiske,  Through  Nature  to  God,  pp.  152-162. 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  125 

transcendent  principles  that  we  have  to  do, 
rather  than  with  the  inherent  difficulties  of 
transcendent  speculation  at  large.  And  the  truth 
here  is  the  same  concerning  the  qualitative  deter- 
mination of  the  Infinite  as  it  has  been  found  to 
be  in  regard  to  the  assumption  of  an  indetermi- 
nate ground  of  the  world.  In  the  one  case  the 
outcome  of  science  allied  itself  with  a  general 
tendency  of  human  thinking  to  lend  support  to 
a  fundamental  postulate  of  theistic  reflection : 
in  this  it  joins  hands  with  philosophy  to  give 
substantial  assistance  in  the  advance  from  the 
assumption  of  some  sort  of  an  Infinite  to  belief 
in  God.  The  world  has  an  infinite  unitary  basis, 
the  ground  of  the  world  is  an  active  Being  — 
such  are  the  successive  steps  in  the  scientific 
argument  for  faith. 

But  the  belief  in  an  infinite  unity,  or  even  in 
an  active  ground  of  the  world,  does  not  amount 
to  theism  in  the  proper  meaning  of  the  term.1  If 
the  argument  stops  here,  the  result  may  be  a 
pantheistic  view  of  the  universe  rather  than  faith 
in  a  living  God.  Not  infrequently  in  the  history 
of  speculation,  thinkers  in  whom  the  instinct  for 

1  pp.  116-122  and  125-131  were  printed  in  The  Independent, 
New  York,  Sept.  23,  1897,  under  the  title,  "  Theism  and  Contem- 
porary Science." 


126      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

the  first  of  the  two  principles  just  discussed  has 
been  especially  strong  have  fallen  fatally  short 
of  the  full  theistic  conclusion ; a  and  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  addition  of  the  idea  of  activity 
is  sufficient  to  complete  the  inference.  On  the 
contrary,  this  is  a  point  at  which  it  has  seemed 
in  the  recent  past  that  science  was  destined  to 
accomplish  a  deadly  work.  The  nineteenth  cen- 
tury opened  in  Germany  with  a  successful  specu- 
lative movement  which  tended  toward  pantheism 
along  the  lines  of  metaphysical  theory;  as  it 
reached  its  meridian  and  began  to  wane,  the 
outcome  of  physical  inquiry  appeared,  even  more 
than  it  had  clone  in  the  earlier  modern  period, 
to  corroborate  the  same  dreary  doctrine.  The 
special  scientific  conclusion  which  forms  the  prin- 
ciple of  biological  evolution  was  held  to  destroy 
the  argument  which  of  all  the  older  theistic 
proofs  was  most  relied  on  to  justify  belief  in  an 
intelligent  Creator.  For  the  theory  of  the  origin 
of  organic  species  by  natural  descent  was  at  first 
greeted  by  friend  and  foe  alike  as  voiding  the 
argument  from  design  of  all  probative  force.  Fur- 
thermore, the  general  results  of  science  pointed  in 
a  similar  direction.  If  all  physical  facts  are  to 
be  explained  in  terms  of   matter  and  motion,  if 

1  Spinoza,  for  example. 


SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT  127 

mechanism  is  everywhere  dominant  in  the  realm 
of  physical  law,  if  consciousness  itself  is  corre- 
lated with  the  phenomena  of  brain  and  nerve  — 
what  boots  it  whether  the  world-ground  be  one 
or  many,  active  or  inactive,  or  whether  there 
be  a  world-ground  at  all.  Is  not  the  only  legiti- 
mate conclusion  from  the  given  premises  pan- 
theism of  a  materialistic  type  ? 

Nevertheless,  science  in  its  progress  is  beginning 
once  more  to  make  suggestions  of  an  opposite  kind. 
In  reference  to  certain  of  the  questions  at  issue 
between  theism  and  pantheism,  scientific  reflection 
has  little  to  offer  in  confirmation  of  the  theistic 
position.  It  hinders  rather  than  helps  in  the  argu- 
ment for  the  separateness  and  independence  of  the 
Infinite  in  relation  to  the  finite  world  ;  so  likewise 
the  problems  concerning  the  divine  will  remain  for 
solution  when  science  has  yielded  of  her  best.  But 
in  regard  to  the  question  of  the  divine  intelligence, 
she  is  returning  in  measure  to  her  work  in  support 
of  the  venture  of  faith.  For  although  Darwinism  is 
incompatible  with  the  older  teleology  of  creative 
fiat,  it  is  evident  that  the  theory  of  biological 
evolution  is  instinct  with  teleological  implications 
of  its  own :  it  has  greatly  enlarged  our  conceptions 
of  the  number  and  the  complexity  of  the  adjust- 
ments manifested  by  the  phenomena  of  the  organic 


128      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

world ;  it  arrives  at  its  conclusions  by  taking 
account  of  the  ulterior  relations  of  structure  and 
function,  instead  of  considering  these  apart  from 
the  question  of  adaptation  ;  as  it  broadens  to 
include  the  psychical  as  well  as  the  physical  life  of 
man,  his  social  existence,  and  his  ethical  conduct, 
it  finds  itself  forced  to  abandon  the  assumption 
that  physical  laws  alone  are  sufficient  to  serve  as 
principles  of  universal  explanation ;  by  its  results, 
if  not  by  its  method,  it  suggests  estimates  of  value, 
at  times  even  to  the  detriment  of  the  purely 
scientific  character  of  its  own  investigations.1  Now, 
starting  from  such  data,  it  is  possible,  in  agreement 
with  a  considerable  body  of  later  thinkers,  to  defend 
the  existence  of  an  intelligent  framer  of  the  entire 
process  of  nature,  by  an  inference  that  involves  a 
change  in  the  time-honored  argument  from  design 
rather  than  the  abandonment  of  the  principle  on 
which  it  was  based.  Or  emphasis  may  be  laid  on 
the  teleological  bearings  of  some  more  special  phase 
of  the  evolutionary  theory,  as  the  picture  which  it 
presents  of  a  great  world-process  moving  toward 
its  g-oal  in  the  life  of  man,  henceforth  "  its  crown 
and  glory." 2     Or   company   may   be   joined   with 

1  In  particular,  the  identification  of   evolution  and  progress. 
Cf.  chap.  VII.,  pp.  309-310. 

2  Cf.  Fiske,  The  Destiny  of  Man,  and  The  Idea  of  God. 


SCIENCE   AND  DOUBT  129 

those  who  adopt  a  broader  form  of  thought  and 
respond  to  the  idea,  that  where  objective  reason 
is  so  evident,  there  subjective  reason  can  also  not 
be  absent ;  that  since  the  world  exhibits  order  and 
finality,  the  ground  of  the  world  is  itself  to  be  con- 
ceived as  a  conscious  beino;.  It  is  considerations  of 
this  latter  kind,  perhaps,  that  weigh  most  heavily 
with  the  majority  of  scientific  thinkers  who  find 
themselves  returning  to  a  theistic  position.  The 
argument  may  not  be  constructed  on  the  old  lines, 
or  there  may  not  be  much  definite  argumentation 
in  their  minds  at  all ;  for  in  the  case  of  very  many, 
it  is  not  so  much  an  inference  as  an  impression  of  a 
general  yet  forcible  nature,  which  is  based  upon  the 
rationality  which  they  discover  in  the  facts  of 
their  own  field  and  which  rises  to  a  belief  in  the 
existence  of  a  Divine  Reason  behind  and  beneath 
the  facts.1 

"With  such  intimations  of  theism,  again,  the 
results  of  general  science  enter  into  alliance.  Not 
only  organic  life,  but  also  the  world  of  inorganic 

1  Less  cogent  than  any  one  of  the  three  lines  of  proof  mentioned 
in  the  text  is  the  attempt,  which  some  have  favored,  to  discover  occa- 
sions for  direct  teleological  guidance  of  the  course  of  nature  in  the 
unexplained  factors  of  the  evolutionary  process  {e.g.  the  cause,  or 
causes,  of  the  variations,  the  selection  and  preservation  of  which 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  accounts,  according  to  the  Darwinian 
theory,  for  the  origin  of  species). 


130      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

nature  shows  itself  subject  to  law.    But  law  means 
order   and   uniformity,  and  these   as   before    sug- 
gest intelligence ;  so  that  while  the  prevalence  of 
law  raises  serious  problems  of  its  own,  it  is  impos- 
sible in  contemplating  it  not  to  raise  the  question, 
Can  nature  itself  be  possible  apart  from  an  under- 
lying  Mind  ?     Every   new   discovery    in    science, 
therefore,  becomes  not  merely  a  revelation  of  the 
manner  of  God's  working,  but  also  a  new  illustra- 
tion of  the  physical  argument  for   his   existence. 
The  more  extensive  the  regions  of  nature  that  are 
brought  under  the  canons  of  rational  investigation 
and  the  more  successful  man's  effort  to  apply  to 
natural  phenomena  the  processes  of  his  own  think- 
ing, the  more  difficult  it  becomes  to  believe  that  na- 
ture exists  in  independence  of  an  Infinite  Thought. 
In  this  way  the  crushing  weight  of  the  mechanical 
position  is  lightened  by  the  assistance  which  science 
itself  lends  to  the  theistic  proof,  since  various  lines 
of  reflection  converge  to  the  same  positive  conclu- 
sion.    Theism,  it  must  be  added  by  way  of  warning, 
is  not  yet  past  its  conflicts,  nor  even  is  it  freed 
completely  from  the  perils  that  have  come  to  it  as 
consequences  of  scientific  progress.     But  as  there 
are  fundamental  tendencies  which  always  bear  in 
favor  of  the  theistic  thesis,  so  new  aids  to  faith  have 
arisen  in  a  quarter  which  for  the  time  appeared  to 


SCIENCE  AND  DOUBT  131 

be  the  house  of  her  foes.  And  as  science,  in  spite 
of  the  furtherance  which  it  has  given  to  modern 
doubt,  has  been  found  to  be  an  effective  agent  in 
the  promotion  of  confidence  in  the  powers  of  the 
mind,  so  here,  in  regard  to  this  final  and  critical 
question  of  human  thinking,  it  brings  assistance 
as  well  as  creates  difficulties  which  were  unknown 
before. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE    HISTORICAL    SPIRIT    AND    THE    THEORY    OF 
EVOLUTION 

In  periods  of  intellectual  unrest  there  is  a  natu- 
ral tendency  toward  historical  inquiry,  since  the 
abandonment  of  accepted  principles  involves  a  loss 
which  must  be  made  good  before  the  mind  can 
recover  its  normal  poise,  but  the  paralysis  of  con- 
structive thinking  which  is  consequent  on  the  prev- 
alence of  doubt  for  the  time  being  gives  no  promise 
of  new  conclusions  fitted  to  supply  the  lack. 
Thinkers,  therefore,  who  are  reluctant  to  take 
refuge  in  a  suspension  of  judgment,  as  they  seek 
now  here  now  there  for  a  system  more  tenable  than 
those  which  have  been  discarded,  have  their  atten- 
tion drawn  to  the  opinions  of  earlier  schools  and 
ages.  In  some  instances  the  appeal  to  the  past  is 
made  in  order  to  support  revolutionary  views  for 
which  acceptance  is  desired  :  so  in  his  endeavors  to 
replace  absolute  forms  of  government  by  forms  of 
a  more  popular  type,  the  modern  political  reformer 
has  often  cited  precedents  from  antiquity  in  favor 

132 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  133 

of  democratic  rule.  In  other  cases  —  and  this 
class  includes  by  far  the  larger  number  when  the 
more  fundamental  issues  are  at  stake  —  the  return 
to  older  forms  of  doctrine  is  essayed  because  of  the 
dearth  of  contemporary  principles  of  a  believable 
kind.  This  is  especially  true  in  the  region  of  philo- 
sophical speculation.  The  decline  of  constructive 
effort  in  eras  of  transition  regularly  checks  reflec- 
tion on  the  central  questions  of  metaphysical  inquiry. 
In  these  periods,  as  remarked  above,  attention  is 
for  the  most  part  diverted  to  the  principles  of  ethical 
and  religious  life,  courage  being  wanting  for  the 
consideration  of  problems  not  of  immediate  practi- 
cal importance.1  But  ethics  and  religion  them- 
selves imply  some  sort  of  a  view  of  the  world  and 
life.  Hence  those  who  feel  the  need  for  j)hilosophy 
at  large  but  find  nothing  in  the  thought  of  their 
time  to  satisfy  the  demand,  are  joined  by  those  who 
will  have  as  little  metaphysics  as  possible  and  yet 
require  some  foundation  for  their  practical  interests, 
in  a  renewal  of  principles  advocated  by  the  leaders 
of  bygone  ages. 

Often,  it  must  be  added,  these  revivals  from  the 

past  are  forced  into  alliances  foreign  to  their  own 

nature  and  to  the  ends  which  they  were  originally 

intended    to    accomplish.      Intellectual    necessity 

»  Cf.  chap.  I.,  pp.  17-23,  32  ff. 


134      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

makes  strange  companions  as  well  as  physical  want. 
But  the  vagaries  of  the  restorers  of  older  doctrines 
in  no  wise  detract  from  the  truth  of  the  principle 
which  is  illustrated  by  their  ventures.  Rather  do 
they  furnish  a  salient  proof,  if  further  proof  were 
needed,  of  the  correctness  of  the  general  conclusion ; 
illustrations  of  which,  moreover,  have  been  abundant 
in  the  history  of  both  the  ancient  and  the  modern 
world.  The  alliance  of  the  Stoic  ethics  with  the 
speculative  physics  of  Heracleitus,  the  adoption  of 
the  Atomistic  philosophy  by  Epicurus  and  his  fol- 
lowers, the  reliance  of  neo-Platonism,  that  last  great 
attempt  of  antiquity  to  establish  an  anti-Christian 
philosophy  of  religion,  upon  fragments  of  Platonic 
doctrine  on  the  one  hand,  and  echoes  of  Jewish  and 
Oriental  speculation  on  the  other,  are  but  the  most 
striking  instances  of  the  return  of  ancient  thought 
in  the  course  of  its  long  death-struggle  to  principles 
struck  out  by  the  master  thinkers  in  the  days  of 
its  youth  and  prime.  Even  more  significant  were 
the  manifold  revivals  of  ancient  philosophy  at  the 
time  of  the  Renaissance.  For  it  is  difficult  to  name 
a  system  of  Greek  or  Latin  speculation  which  at 
this  period  failed  to  secure  the  assent  of  some  philo- 
sophical thinkers.  There  were  new  interpretations 
of  Aristotle,  in  opposition  to  the  Aristotelian  ism 
of  orthodox  theology ;  there  was  a  Platonic  school 


THE  HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  135 

antagonistic  to  Aristotelianism  of  every  sort  and 
name ;  there  was  neo-Platonism,  there  was  Stoicism, 
there  was  Epicureanism,  there  was  even  a  return 
to  the  old  rhetorical  philosophy  by  admirers  of 
Cicero  and  Quintilian.1  None  of  the  classical  sys- 
tems were  too  great,  few  apparently  too  insig- 
nificant, to  be  counted  worthy  of  reproduction,  the 
tendency  common  to  eras  of  transition  being  in 
this  case  intensified  by  the  wide-spread  reverence  of 
the  age  for  antiquity  and  by  the  dependence  of  its 
culture  upon  the  influence  of  the  classical  revival.2 

Such  devotion  to  earlier  forms  of  culture  is  mani- 
festly favorable  to  the  study  of  their  history.  In 
whatsoever  department  an  interest  is  felt  in  the 
revival  of  the  achievements  of  former  times,  a  de- 
mand will  spring  up  for  fresh,  more  accurate,  and 
more  complete  accounts  of  what  these  results 
actually  were.  The  more  general  the  appeal  to 
the  older  thinking  becomes,  the  louder  will  be  the 
call  for  historical  investigation,  the  wider  the  field 
which  it  will  have  to  include  in  its  survey.  There 
exists,  moreover,  in  eras  of  transition,  a  tendency 
toward  historical  modes  of  thought  which  to  a 
certain  degree  is  independent  of  the  definite  adop- 
tion  of   opinions   taken   from  the  past.     For,  as 

1  See  Falckeuberg,  op.  cit.,  pp.  26-29. 

2  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp.  50-59. 


136      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

always,  the  mind  in  these  ages  seeks  material  for 
the  exercise  of  its  activity,  and  since  no  adequate 
content  is  supplied  it  by  the  reflection  of  the  time, 
it  turns  with  interest  to  the  inheritance  come  down 
to  it  from  other  and  happier  days.  The  energy  for 
new  intellectual  enterprises  is  lacking :  at  least  it 
is  possible  to  study  the  work  of  mankind  in  times 
when  thought  was  neither  halted  in  its  progress 
nor  denied  its  due  measure  of  success.  Though  the 
hope  of  profit  from  the  labors  of  the  present  is  but 
small,  there  remains  as  a  secure  possession  the 
record  of  what  the  thinkers  of  other  ages  have 
accomplished.  Beyond  a  doubt,  the  outcome  of  their 
exertions  possessed  a  relative  value  for  the  times  in 
which  they  lived,  however  clearly  its  permanent 
validity  may  have  been  disproven  by  the  progress 
of  inquiry.  Perchance  it  may  even  suggest  some 
hints  or  lessons  bearing  on  the  problems  of  the 
present  age ;  while  at  the  worst  we  may  renew  our 
sentiments  of  hope  and  duty,  of  faith  and  aspiration, 
by  the  contemplation  of  examples  vouchsafed  by 
civilizations  which  differed  from  our  own  as  much 
by  the  robustness  of  their  development  as  by  their 
inner  content.  In  fine,  since  it  is  impossible  alto- 
gether to  refrain  from  thinking,  it  is  better  to 
retrace  the  course  followed  by  the  mind  in  its 
earlier  progress  than  to  stand  forever  marking  time 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  137 

amid  the  barren  wastes  of  negative  reflection.  So 
of  set  purpose,  or  moved  by  impulse,  thought  in 
transitional  eras  turns  backward  to  discover  truth  ; 
in  addition  to  the  tendency  to  revive  principles  and 
systems  formerly  in  favor,  there  is  a  general  and 
half-conscious  inclination  to  focus  attention  on  the 
records  of  the  past. 

It  is  suggestive  in  this  connection  to  remember 
that  the  present  age,  itself  an  era  of  transition,  has 
been  preeminently  characterized  by  the  develop- 
ment of  historical  inquiry.  Among  the  tendencies 
which  color  the  reflection  of  the  time  there  is  none 
more  marked  than  the  influence  which  has  pro- 
ceeded from  the  growth  of  the  historical  spirit. 
Not  only  is  it  true  that  in  this  age  above  all  others 
historical  studies  have  engrossed  the  attention  of 
scholars ;  but  what  is  more  notable  still,  our  intel- 
lectual activity  has  been  distinguished  by  the 
endeavor  to  utilize  the  principles  of  history  in 
explanation  of  the  origin,  the  growth,  and  the 
meaning  of  the  most  varied  human  institutions. 
It  is  altogether  probable,  however,  that  the  devo- 
tion of  the  age  to  historical  modes  of  thought  has 
been  due  in  considerable  part  to  other  causes  than 
the  interest  in  history  which  is  common  to  periods 
of  intellectual  confusion.  Indications  are  not 
wanting,  it  is  true,  that  this  influence  also  has  been 


138      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

at  work  of  late,  as  it  was  four  centuries  ago  in 
Western  Europe,  or  many  centuries  beyond  the 
earlier  date  in  the  declining  periods  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  How  general,  for  instance,  is  the  belief 
nowadays  among  students  of  philosophy  that,  at 
least  to  a  degree,  we  must  retrace  our  steps  before 
there  can  be  any  legitimate  hope  of  fruitful  progress 
in  metaphysics :  how  frequently  they  are  found 
going  back  to  Kant,  or  Hegel,  or  to  some  of  the 
leaders  of  the  earlier  speculation,  in  order  to  secure 
a  starting-point  for  their  own  reflection,  and  how 
catholic,  not  to  say  how  wilful,  is  the  taste  dis- 
played in  philosophy  —  and  the  same  holds  good 
of  other  departments  as  well  —  in  the  selection  of 
positions  for  reproduction  or  for  imitation.  Some- 
times —  and  the  criticism,  alas,  applies  even  more 
to  current  movements  in  religion  and  theology  than 
it  does  to  pure  speculation  —  a  welcome  is  given 
to  older  doctrines  so  fanciful  in  their  nature  or  so 
extreme  that  the  observer  is  tempted  to  ascribe  a 
quite  unusual  degree  of  credulity  alike  to  negative 
thinkers  who  have  disdainfully  abandoned  principles 
upon  which  Western  civilization  has  for  ages  rested 
to  replace  them  by  others  long  since  exploded,  and 
to  conservatives  who  are  endeavoring  in  haste  to 
rebuild  the  foundations  of  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  edifice. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  139 

Nevertheless,  the  historical  tendencies  of  the 
present  age  cannot  be  completely  explained  as  the 
result  of  despondency  alone,  or  as  the  outcome  of 
intellectual  revolt.  The  influence  which  they  ex- 
ert on  the  thinking  of  the  time  is  too  extensive, 
they  constitute  too  essential  a  factor  in  the  con- 
structive movement  which  persists  in  spite  of  the 
negative  implications  of  later  reflection,  for  them 
to  be  referred  exclusively  to  causes  of  a  general  and 
negative  kind.  For  here  once  more  we  are  brought 
face  to  face  with  facts  which  have  been  too  often 
overlooked  in  the  consideration  of  eras  of  transition, 
the  presence  of  constructive  tendencies  in  the  midst 
of  the  transitional  movement  and  the  close  con- 
nection in  many  cases  of  its  negative  and  its  posi- 
tive phases.1  For  the  thinker  of  to-day  the  point  is 
obscured  by  the  unique  relation  at  present  existing 
between  the  various  forces  by  which  the  thought  of 
the  age  is  controlled.  Never  before  in  the  history  of 
human  thinking  have  principles  of  constructive  value 
in  their  own  fields  been  applied  with  so  destructive 
effect  in  other  departments  of  inquiry,  never,  as 
we  have  seen,  have  men  been  so  confident  that 
they  were  in  possession  of  absolute  truth  within 
the  limits  of  sensuous  experience  and  so  doubtful 
whether  truth  is  attainable  at  all  in  the  region  of 

1  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  104-105. 


140      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

transcendent  speculation.1  Yet  as  the  age  passes 
on  from  its  earlier  to  its  later  stages,  it  becomes  less 
possible  to  ignore  the  presence  of  fruitful  positive 
forces  at  work  beneath  and  behind,  or  even  along 
with,  the  specifically  negative  movements.  Science 
leads  on  to  philosophy  as  of  old.  The  exigencies 
of  political  and  social  as  well  as  of  individual  life 
continue  to  demand  an  ethic,  albeit  certain  dominant 
developments  of  recent  opinion  have  little  of  an 
ethical  sort  to  offer.  Religion  refuses  to  accept  the 
sentence  of  condemnation  so  often  passed  upon  it, 
or  even  to  stay  dead  in  hearts  where  it  has  been 
crushed  down.  These  are  some  of  the  more  general 
influences  which  make  for  the  continuance  and  the 
progress  of  constructive  thinking.  Prominent 
among  the  more  special  forces  engaged  in  the  same 
work  are  those  which  find  expression  in  the  devo- 
tion of  the  age  to  historical  inquiry  and  the  increase 
of  the  historical  spirit. 

The  beginnings  of  the  modern  interest  in  history 
date  farther  back,  indeed,  than  the  present  era  of 
transition.  In  particular,  it  may  be  said  concern- 
ing the  last  period  of  doubt  before  the  present,  that 
attention  then  was  given  to  the  records  of  the 
past,  and  that  a  century  and  a  quarter  or  a 
century  and  a  half   ago  advantage  was  taken  of 

1  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp.  76-80. 


THE   HISTOEICAL   SPIRIT  141 

the  teachings  of  history,  as  men  then  understood 
them,  in  the  endeavor  to  solve  the  problems  of  the 
time.  In  support  of  this  conclusion  it  would  be 
easy  to  cite  examples  from  the  leaders  of  the 
destructive  schools,  from  whom,  in  fact,  the  im- 
pulse toward  historical  inquiry  in  large  measure 
proceeded.  Voltaire  wrote  histories  as  well  as  dra- 
mas, poems,  satires,  and  lampoons.  Montesquieu 
based  the  Spirit  of  Laws  on  an  analysis  of  the 
conditions  on  which  laws  depend  as  well  as  the  new 
conceptions  of  nature  and  man.  Among  British 
writers,  after  the  mid-century  was  passed,  Hume 
added  the  History  of  England  to  his  philosophical 
writings ;  while  it  is  but  a  few  years  since  the 
centenary  of  the  appearance  of  Gibbon's  Memoirs 
gave  occasion  to  the  entire  English-speaking  world 
to  celebrate  anew  the  merits  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall.  In  the  later  stages  of  the  era,  also,  espe- 
cially in  Germany,  there  were  anticipations  and 
applications  of  the  principle  of  historical  develop- 
ment.1 Thus,  although  the  historical  spirit  is 
rightly  considered  characteristic  of  the  present  age 
and  its  absence  or  incompleteness  a  note  of  eigh- 
teenth-century reflection  in  its  typical  forms,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  our  devotion  to  histori- 
cal modes  of  thought,  or  even  the  methods  of 
1  Cf.  below,  pp.  166-167. 


142      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

historical  inquiry  which  have  proved  themselves  of 
value,  have  sprung  up  without  preparation  in  the 
epoch  which  immediately  preceded  our  own.1 

Apart,  however,  from  the  great  increase  of  in- 
terest in  historical  study,  and  the  multiplication  of 
special  investigations,  there  are  manifold  elements 
in  the  historical  thinking  of  the  present  era  which 
combine  to  make  it  a  notable  phenomenon  of 
intellectual  progress.  Prominent  among  these  is 
the  more  perfect  development  of  the  methods  of 
historical  investigation.  The  methods  of  exact 
research,  which  have  proven  so  fruitful  in  other 
departments  of  inquiry,  have  been  more  heartily 
welcomed  than  ever  before  by  recent  historical 
scholars  as  instruments  for  the  solution  of  their 
peculiar  problems.  In  no  previous  age  of  the 
world  has  the  inquiry  into  the  facts  of  history 
been  pursued  with  so  persistent  determination, 
and  never  have  the  facts  when  ascertained  been 
utilized  so  sacredly  in  the  formation  of  historical 
conclusions.     As   the    physical    scientist    observes 


1  J.  Morley,  Voltaire,  chap.  VI. ;  Leslie  Stephen,  English  Thought 
in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  chap.  I.,  §  58,  IV.,  §§  80-82,  VIII.,  §§  7, 
83-87  (cf.  J.  T.  Merz,  History  of  European  Thought  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,  vol.  I.,  pp.  46-47,  and  note  1  to  the  latter  page,  where 
the  first  of  these  references  from  Stephen  is  cited)  ;  W.  Pilthey, 
"  Das  achtzehnte  Jahrhundert  und  die  geschichtliche  Welt,"  Deutsche 
Rundschau,  1901,  pp.  241-262,  350-380. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  143 

and  experiments  in  his  laboratory  or  in  the  fields, 
as   he  tests    and    measures    and    weighs,  so    the 
productive  leaders  of  later  historical  study  go  back 
to    the    primary    sources   of    information.      Ani- 
mated by  a  distrust  of  tradition  and  authority,  and 
by  the  spirit  of   exact   research,  they  make  long 
journeys  in  order  to  become  eye-witnesses  of  the 
scenes  of   historic  events;    they  study  the  monu- 
ments to  recover  the  annals  of  early  civilizations ; 
they  ransack    old    libraries,  and  bring  the  facts  to 
light  which  lie  hidden  in  the  time-stained  records 
of  the  past ;  they  burrow  in  official  archives  that 
original   state-papers   may   be   made   to  yield   up 
their    secrets;    and    they   apply    the    criteria    of 
critical  interpretation  to   the  data  thus  gathered, 
in   order    that   the    prima   facie   bearing   of    the 
evidence  may  be  sifted  by  the  strictest  tests.     In 
short,    the    historian  nowadays    differs   from   the 
annalist  of  primitive  times  as  much  by  his  patient 
investigation  of  the  phenomena  of  history  as  by 
his   endeavor  to  view  his  results   in  those  larger 
connections  which  the  mind  of  the  annalist  was 
entirely  unfitted  to  grasp. 

The  above  account  has  reference  primarily  to 
political  and  civil  history.  It  is  evident,  however, 
that  the  same  description  will  apply  to  the  develop- 
ment of  historical  science  in  its  wider  ramifications. 


144      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

In  the  history  of  society  at  large  as  in  the  history 
of  its  political  organization,  in  the  history  of  cul- 
ture as  in  the  history  of  the  state,  in  ecclesiastical 
history  no  less  than  in  the  field  of  secular  annals, 
in  the  study  of  the  genesis  and  the  progress  of 
opinion  —  in  a  word,  in  all  investigation  of  the 
past,  whether  the  aim  is  merely  to  reproduce 
events  as  they  have  occurred  or  to  base  upon  the 
recovered  records  inferences  of  a  broader  scope, 
the  ideal  of  the  historical  scholar  to-day  includes 
complete  acquaintance  with  the  sources  of  infor- 
mation, careful  scrutiny  of  the  materials  of  history, 
scrupulous  fidelity  in  the  formation  of  his  con- 
clusions and  in  the  presentation  of  them  to  the 
world.  In  this  way,  history  in  all  its  branches 
shares  largely  in  the  critical  temper  of  the  age. 
Or  to  put  the  case  more  accurately,  it  is  itself 
instinct  with  the  spirit  of  criticism,  and  it  contrib- 
utes as  few  other  forms  of  human  thinking  to  the 
development  and  the  diffusion  of  this  spirit.  In 
order  to  the  proper  prosecution  of  its  researches, 
it  frames  canons  of  investigation  which  reproduce 
in  forms  suited  to  the  special  field  the  rules  of 
thoroughness  and  precision  imposed  by  modern 
opinion  upon  all  kinds  of  serious  inquiry.  The 
ideal  which  it  endeavors  to  attain  inculcates  criti- 
cal caution  and  veracity  —  the  insistence  on  these 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  145 

virtues  of  the  historian  increasing  with  the  earnest- 
ness with  which  the  aims  of  history  are  conceived. 
It  also  adds  cogency  to  the  demand  for  criticism 
by  suggesting  as  the  result  of  its  own  investiga- 
tions new  principles  of  critical  interpretation. 
Historical  criticism,  therefore,  in  the  modern 
acceptation  of  the  term,  means  more  than  careful 
scrutiny  with  the  aid  of  the  various  approved  tests 
of  positive  and  negative  truth.  It  implies  the 
examination  of  records  or  documents  or  asserted 
facts  in  view  of  the  laws  of  historical  development ; 
which  laws  themselves  on  the  one  hand  supply  new 
criteria  of  historical  reality,  on  the  other  suggest 
far-reaching  principles  of  explanation. 

These  advances  in  method  have  in  part  accom- 
panied in  part  conditioned  important  changes  in 
opinion  concerning  the  nature  and  the  object  of 
history,  especially  the  change  from  the  "  prag- 
matic" or  didactic  and  "literary"  types  of  histori- 
cal writing  to  the  "scientific  "  form,  which  confines 
itself  to  "  the  reproduction  of  the  events  of  the  past 
exactly  as  they  have  occurred."  *  In  recent  times, 
again,  the  "  scientific  "  movement  has  culminated 
in  an  intense  reaction  against  the  earlier  modes  of 

1  H.  Morse  Stephens,  "  History"  in  Counsel  upon  the  Reading  of 
Books;  E.  Bernheim,  Lehrbuch  der  Historischen  Methode  (2d  ed., 
L894),  pp.  13-32,  KJ8-17G. 


146      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

historical  inquiry  and  composition,  has  issued,  in 
fact,  in  a  view  of  history  which,  because  of  its 
insistence  on  the  extreme  application  of  critical 
principles,  its  exclusion  of  all  didactic  or  ethical 
inferences,  and  its  rejection  of  all  tendencies  toward 
the  literary  embellishment  of  historical  narrative, 
has  sometimes  been  compared  to  the  negative  or 
disintegrative  movements  which  have  marked  the 
culture  of  the  later  nineteenth  century  in  so  many 
different  fields.1 

Greater  significance  for  thought  at  large  is  to 
be  attributed  to  a  fourth  salient  characteristic  of 
recent  historical  reflection,  which  the  discussion  of 
history  as  criticism  has  suggested  by  way  of  antici- 
pation :  its  value  as  an  instrument  of  explanation 
in  various  departments  of  inquiry.  For  if  the  in- 
fluence of  the  modern  historical  spirit  on  the  prog- 
ress of  opinion  ended  with  its  accentuation  of 
critical  principles,  there  would  be  ground  for  ques- 
tioning its  classification  among  the  constructive 
forces  of  the  age.  It  is  not  merely  because  history 
has  interested  us  for  its  own  sake  that  it  has 
gained  a  foremost  place  in  our  thinking,  nor  be- 
cause it  has  made  essential  contribution  to  the  de- 
velopment of  criticism,  nor  even  —  though  at  this 

1  Cf.  H.  Morse  Stephens,  op.  cit. ;  and  Langlois  and  Seignobos, 
Introduction  to  the  Study  of  History  (trans,  by  G.  G.  Berry). 


THE   HISTOKICAL   SPIRIT  147 

point  its  effect  has  been  very  marked  —  because, 
like  history  in  every  age,  it  enforces  lessons  which 
bear  on  the  questions  of  political  and  social  organi- 
zation. On  the  contrary,  the  strongest  attraction 
that  the  historical  mode  of  thought  presents  to  the 
minds  of  contemporary  thinkers  is  to  be  found  in 
the  proffer  of  itself  as  a  means  for  the  solution  of 
the  most  varied  and  most  pressing  problems.  This 
conception  was  for  the  most  part  foreign  to  the 
thought  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Reflective 
minds  were  then  too  often  controlled  by  the  same 
delusion  that  had  misled  their  Athenian  predeces- 
sors of  the  fifth  century  before  the  Christian  era. 
As  the  latter  believed  that  government  was  the  in- 
vention of  tyrants  for  the  better  oppression  of  the 
subject,  religion  and  morals  devices  of  the  ruler, 
abetted  by  the  priest,  for  the  further  exploitation 
of  the  people,  so  the  former  proceeded  on  the  as- 
sumption that  institutions  could  be  created  at  a 
stroke,  or,  at  least,  that  they  were  possible  products 
of  artificial  making.  The  state  was  held  to  be  the 
result  of  a  compact.  In  social  life,  as  well  as  in 
individual  conduct,  a  return  must  be  made  to  the 
state  of  nature.  Religion  was  to  be  purified  from 
the  corrupting  additions  which  had  been  engrafted 
on  the  primitive  rational  faith.  In  general,  on 
the  basis  of  the  new  ideas,  a  complete  reform  of 


148      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

human  affairs  was  to  be  undertaken,  in  the  unhesi- 
tating belief  that  the  world  stood  on  the  threshold 
of  a  second  golden  age. 

It  is  clue  in  a  considerable  degree  to  the  fail- 
ure of  these  brilliant  dreams  that  the  thinking  of 
our  later  age  rejects  the  assumptions  on  which 
the  work  of  its  predecessor  was  founded.  No 
longer  do  we  believe  that  institutions  are  created 
out  of  hand ;  and  at  least  the  soberer  heads  among 
us  are  doubtful  concerning  man's  capacity  to  better 
his  condition  by  making  all  things  new.  In  place 
of  the  conviction  that  institutions  have  sprung 
from  single  deeds  on  the  part  of  leading  indi- 
viduals or  on  the  part  of  society  as  a  whole,  there 
has  been  substituted  the  belief  that,  like  all  things 
else,  they  are  the  outcome  of  a  process  of  growth. 
In  this  way  the  point  of  view  has  been  essentially 
altered,  the  historical  method  of  inquiry  finding 
completion  in  the  genetic  method  of  explanation. 
This  dominant  conception  of  the  new  time  has 
been  well  phrased  in  the  title  of  a  work  by  an 
American  historian  and  philosopher  whose  views 
at  many  points  bear  on  the  present  discussion.1 
Not  merely  "  the  destiny  of  man "  but  the  nature 
and  destiny  of  all  things  must  now  be  studied  "  in 
the  light  of  their  origin."     Biological  science  has 

1  J.  Fiske,  The  Destiny  of  Man  Viewed  in  the  Light  of  his  Or'njin. 


THE  HISTOKICAL   SPIRIT  149 

been  revolutionized  by  a  theory  of  the  genesis  of 
species.  The  ultimate  origin  of  law  and  custom  is 
sought  in  the  habits  of  the  tribe.  The  source,  if 
not  always  the  sanction,  of  moral  principles  is  dis- 
covered in  the  conditions  of  social  health  and  prog- 
ress. The  great  debate  concerning  religion  and 
theology  takes  on  new  forms,  for  assailant  and 
apologist  alike  view  the  subject  from  a  more  rea- 
sonable position  than  that  which  formed  the  van- 
tage-ground of  the  old  antagonists,  the  questions  at 
issue  being  discussed  no  longer  as  disconnected 
phenomena  to  be  considered  in  detail,  but  in  con- 
nection with  the  principle  of  growth,  ultimately 
in  connection  with  the  development  of  impulses 
deeply  embedded  in  man's  essential  nature.  Soci- 
ety as  a  whole  is  looked  upon  as  an  organism, 
subject  like  organisms  at  large  to  the  laws  of 
evolution.  In  fine,  if  the  method  of  genetic  ex- 
planation was  undervalued  or  ignored  in  the  last 
age,  in  this  it  has  become  a  foremost  factor  in  the 
reflection  of  the  time. 

A  corollary  —  or  a  premise  —  of  this  notable 
factor  in  the  modern  historical  spirit,  and  standing 
in  organic  connection  with  it,  is  a  principle  of  still 
broader  scope,  which  construes  the  products  of 
development  as  themselves  historical  phenomena. 
Language  and   customs   and   institutions  and    be- 


150      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

liefs — these,  and  all  the  other  various  results  of 
the  historical  process,  are  from  this  point  of  view- 
to  be  considered  impermanent  things.  Themselves 
developed,  they  must  in  turn  pass  away ;  or,  to 
state  the  conclusion  in  a  more  moderate  form, 
being  explicable  in  terms  of  organic  growth,  they 
are  sensitive  likewise  to  the  action  of  the  forces 
which  bring  about  decay.1  This  principle,  again, 
and  a  fortiori,  amounts  to  a  conception  of  the 
wrorld  which  was  absent  from  the  thought  of  the 
eighteenth  century  until  it  began  to  incline  toward 
the  view  which  was  to  dominate  the  thinking  of 
its  immediate  successor.  Even  then  the  idea  in 
question  was  grasped  by  fewer  minds  than  those 
masters  of  later  eighteenth-century  reflection  num- 
bered who  caught  foreglimpses  of  the  general 
principle  of  genetic  development.  Even  when  the 
institutions  of  the  time  were  interpreted  as  the 
outcome  of  a  process  of  growth,  it  was  not  sup- 
posed that  in  their  own  nature  they  were  transi- 
tory, and  if  not  destined  entirely  to  disappear,  yet 
liable  to  change  and  transformation,  and  open  to 
improvement  in  the  course  of  future  progress.     On 

*  For  a  characterization  of  later  civil  history  from  this  point  of 
view,  see  Bernheim,  op.  cit.,  pp.  22-31 ;  and  on  the  application  of 
the  principle  to  phenomena  at  large,  the  brief  but  trenchant  sum- 
mary by  F.  Paulsen,  Immanuel  Kant  (Eng.  trans,  by  Creighton 
and  Lefevre),  pp.  394-399. 


THE  HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  151 

the  contrary,  the  characteristic  attitude  of  the  En- 
lightenment was  one  of  satisfaction  with  the  phase 
of  culture  which  the  age  had  reached.  Up  to  this 
level  growth  had  tended  steadily  higher  toward  the 
ideal  stage.  Now  the  goal  was  gained,  or  at  least 
stood  just  before ;  so  the  completed  outcome,  seeing 
it  was  at  once  the  latest  and  the  best,  brought  with 
it  no  intimation  of  its  impending  decline.1 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  overestimation 
of  the  achievements  of  the  age  in  which  one  lives 
ceased  with  the  close  of  the  epoch  which  thus  pre- 
ceded our  own.  And  apart  from  the  question  of 
value  and  its  bearing  on  the  expectation  of  change, 
it  must  be  said  that  the  law  of  impermanence  is 
not  so  widely  understood,  nor  so  generally  accepted 
still,  as  the  principle  of  genetic  explanation.  The 
one  suggests  the  other,  it  is  true,  —  when  it  is  not 
rather  suggested  by  it,  —  but  the  second  may  be 
ignored,  or  at  most  implicitly  assumed,  even  by 
thinkers  who  count  the  first  a  doctrine  of  indis- 
putable validity,  now  at  last  established  as  part  of 
the  common  stock  of  truth.  Therefore,  though 
the  two  are  closely  related  by  way  of  rational  con- 
nection, as  they  have  been  connected  also  in  the 
intellectual  history  of  the  era  which  they  mark,  a 

1  Cf .  Dilthey,  op.  cit.,  pp.  360,  362 ;  also,  chap.  II.,  above,  pp. 
66  ff. 


152      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

difference  must  be  admitted  in  regard  to  the  extent 
of  the  recognition  they  have  respectively  received. 
It  will  be  noted  that  these  several  features  of  later 
historical  thinking  fall  into  a  serial  order,  proceed- 
ing from  the  simpler  to  the  more  complex,  and 
that,  as  the  degree  of  complexity  increases,  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  employ  the  term  "  history  "  and 
its  derivatives  in  wider  meanings.  In  fact,  it 
might  be  said  of  more  than  one  of  the  tendencies 
under  consideration,  that  it  is  not  so  much  a  result 
as  a  condition,  not  the  outcome  of  a  purely  histori- 
cal movement  terminating  in  a  new  type  of 
thought,  but  a  distinctive  form  of  reflection,  which 
as  it  enters  into  alliance  with  the  historical  spirit 
gives  to  the  latter  deeper  significance  and  a 
stronger  hold  upon  the  mind  of  the  age.  These 
conclusions  would  hold  good,  in  particular,  of  a 
final  element  in  the  view  of  things  favored  by 
modern  scholars,  the  idea  of  unity  and  continuity 
in  history,  and  in  the  development  of  the  world. 
Here,  in  order  to  reach  the  facts,  certain  distinc- 
tions must  be  drawn.  In  general,  the  conception 
has  as  evidently  been  a  note  of  nineteenth-century 
culture  as  it  is  also  clear  that  it  resembles  many 
another  modern  principle  in  possessing  an  ancient 
and  honorable  ancestry  going  back  in  some  of  its 
phases  to  the  early  days  of  speculative  reflection. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  153 

By  no  one  has  it  been  more  distinctly  announced 
and  more  forcibly  urged  than  by  Hegel,  to  whom 
also  from  the  side  of  the  philosophical,  as  to  the 
English  evolutionists  from  the  side  of  the  empirical 
sciences  must  be  ascribed  the  merit  of  having  done 
most  to  make  it  a  constituent  factor  in  the  thought 
of  the  age.  That  there  is  a  universal  law  in  history ; 
that  connections  exist,  more  profound  and  more 
significant  even  than  the  causal  ties  which  bind 
event  to  event  or  the  phenomena  of  one  movement 
or  age  to  their  antecedent  conditions  in  the  period 
immediately  preceding;  that  there  is  continuity 
alike  among  the  phases  of  political  and  social  de- 
velopment which  form  the  subject  of  history  in  the 
restricted  sense  and  in  the  development  of  the 
world  at  large  —  these  are  thoughts,  or  rather 
they  together  constitute  a  single  thought,  than 
which  there  have  been  few  more  potent  in  the 
intellectual  movement  of  the  last  one  hundred 
years  and  which,  in  spite  of  all  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  its  application,  is  not  likely  soon  to  dis- 
appear. 

Nevertheless,  there  have  been  great  diversities 
of  judgment  among  nineteenth-century  thinkers 
concerning  the  principle  of  unity  and  continuity, 
according  as  they  have  belonged  to  different 
schools  or  occupied  varying  positions  in  the  stream 


154      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

of  opinion.  These  differences,  moreover,  have 
continued,  sometimes  in  intensified  forms,  as  the 
closing  century  has  passed  over  into  its  successor. 
Of  historians  in  the  stricter  sense,  students  that  is 
of  political  or  civil  history,  it  is  true  that  they 
show  distinctly  less  inclination  nowadays  to  con- 
sider historical  phenomena  in  their  universal  rela- 
tions than  their  predecessors  felt  when  the  age  was 
young ;  and  this  despite  the  fact  that,  apart  from 
any  theory  or  system,  labor  in  their  chosen  field 
and  the  results  of  their  inquiries  are  fitted  to  press 
the  idea  in  question  on  the  notice  of  thoughtful 
minds.  The  severe  conditions  of  modern  research 
have  served  to  direct  attention  to  special  prob- 
lems. The  failure  of  the  most  brilliant  attempts 
to  frame  a  completed  philosophy  of  history  has 
fostered  and  confirmed  the  impulse  to  neglect 
speculative  inquiries,  the  movement  of  historical 
thinking  in  this  respect  running  parallel  to  the 
movement  of  thought  at  large.  The  violence  which 
historical  truth  has  suffered  at  the  hands  of  more 
than  one  of  the  builders  of  systems  has  added 
aversion  to  the  speculative  method  to  belief  in  its 
futility.  So  it  has  come  about  that  historical 
theory,  like  most  other  intellectual  phenomena  of 
the  age,  has  been  influenced  by  currents  and  cross- 
currents determining  the  trend  of  its  own  history. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  155 

The  mere  registration  of  events  with  no  account 
taken  of  their  connections  and  without  interpreta- 
tion is  annals,  and  not  history.  But  the  negative 
tendencies  described  war  against  the  tendencies 
which  make  for  correlation ;  and  specifically, 
although  the  historian  will  usually  accept  the  evo- 
lutionary ideas  of  his  time,  he  will  in  very  many 
cases  repress  the  impulse  to  apply  these  to  the 
phenomena  of  his  science  as  a  whole. 

In  spite  of  many  analogies,  the  general  move- 
ment of  thought  has  included  elements  of  a 
different  kind.  The  value  of  the  philosophical 
treatment  of  history  has  been  brought  into  ques- 
tion, and  its  possibility  denied.  The  philosophy  of 
science,  albeit  with  scanty  recognition  or  acknowl- 
edgment of  its  speculative  character,  has  gained 
steadily  in  favor  as  the  age  has  gone  on,  the  clos- 
ing decades  of  the  last  century  alone  bringing  a 
reaction  against  its  control  of  thought.  Now,  the 
modern  scientific  view  of  the  world  in  its  latest 
phases  is  full  of  the  idea  of  unity  in  progress  real- 
ized through  the  action  of  a  great  world-process.1 
Thus  the  conception  which  three  generations  ago 
metaphysical  speculation  wrought  into  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  age,  the  idea  also  which  is  sug- 
gested by  the  investigations  of  history  proper,  has 
i  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  118-119. 


156      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

been  developed  and  emphasized  until  it  is  unques- 
tionably to  be  reckoned  among  the  chief  intellec- 
tual  forces  of  the  time.  To  it  the  larger  part  of 
contemporary  thought  does  formal  homage,  while 
many  feel  its  influence  who  are  not  willingly  re- 
sponsive to  its  claims.  By  some  it  is  accepted  as  a 
postulate  regulative  of  inquiry,  and  even  of  con- 
stitutive validity  in  the  general  sense,  but  without 
prejudice  to  their  impatience  of  dogmatic  monism, 
in  particular  to  their  impatience  or  rejection  of 
any  merely  mechanical  or  naturalistic  theory  of  the 
world.  Others  hold  it  of  indubitable  authority  in 
the  determination  of  the  abstract  theory  of  things 
and  of  the  assumptions  fundamental  to  all  forms 
of  rational  inquiry  ; *  but,  as  in  the  cases  which 
have  just  been  noted,  turn  for  fruitful  subjects  of 
study  to  concrete  problems  of  a  limited  scope.  A 
third  class  still,  though  its  members  look  at  the 
world  from  different  points  of  view  and  own  alle- 
giance to  divers  systems  of  opinion,2  combines  the 
interest  of  the  first  in  ultimate  problems  with  the 
devotion  of  the  second  to  the  principle  under  con- 

1  On  the  ground  that  any  "  break "  in  the  continuity  of  the 
world  would  be  fatal  to  the  rational  connection  of  things  which 
makes  thought  possible. 

2  E.g.  metaphysical  idealism,  naturalism,  materialism,  even, 
though  the  position  implies  a  flagrant  disregard  of  logical  con- 
sistency, phenomenalism. 


THE  HISTOEICAL   SPIEIT  157 

sideration,  and  presses  the  doctrine  of  unity  and 
continuity  not  only  to  the  exclusion  of  all  possi- 
bility of  divine  intervention  in  the  course  of  the 
world  and  of  all  undetermined  initiative  on  the 
part  of  the  human  will,  but  even  to  the  oblitera- 
tion of  the  distinctions  between  the  several  spheres 
—  physical,  organic,  mental,  moral  —  of  actual 
existence. 

By  these  several  notes  of  thought,  therefore,  the 
historical  spirit  of  the  present  age  has  been  distin- 
guished from  the  devotion  to  history  characteristic 
of  other  eras  of  transition.  Their  genesis,  it  may 
further  be  remarked,  has  been  due  to  a  complex 
variety  of  causes.  Speaking  broadly  and  without 
inquiry  into  specific  causes,  the  newer  methods  of 
investigation,  the  demand  for  criticism,  and  the 
"  scientific "  view  of  history,  may  be  classed  as 
phenomena  of  the  development  of  historical  knowl- 
edge under  the  general  conditions  of  nineteenth- 
century  reflection.  The  discussion  of  the  method 
of  genetic  explanation,  of  the  law  of  change,  and 
the  principle  of  continuity  will  lead  us  farther 
afield.  Of  primary  importance  here  is  the  claim 
that  the  doctrine  of  biological  evolution  is  to  be 
considered  the  chief  or  even  the  sole  source  of  the 
principles  in  question.  This  has  been  urged  with 
much  insistence  since  the  successful  promulgation 


158      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

of  the  theory  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  century 
that  has  just  ended,  and  its  acceptance  not  only  by 
professional  students  of  nature  as  a  class,  but  also 
by  instructed  thinkers  in  other  departments  of 
inquiry.  Moreover,  as  the  statement  which  was 
made  on  an  earlier  page  implies,1  the  estimates  of 
the  admirers  of  evolution  possess  a  certain  evident 
value.  It  has  been  noted  by  many  competent 
writers  that  the  prominence  of  biological  science  in 
the  intellectual  movement  of  the  age  has  favored 
the  adoption  of  the  historical  point  of  view,  since 
it  turns  attention  away  from  the  problems  of  static 
analysis  to  questions  of  origin  and  growth.  And 
if  this  conclusion  is  true  of  biology  in  general, 
it  applies  with  added  force  to  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion established,  for  the  most  part,  through  the 
labors  of  Mr.  Darwin.  For  it  is  clear  that  Dar- 
win's researches  mark  an  epoch  in  intellectual 
progress.  Revolutionary  in  their  significance  be- 
cause subversive  of  accepted  views  concerning  the 
origin  of  species,  his  conclusions  were  based  on  so 
broad  an  induction  from  facts,  as  in  themselves 
they  were  so  carefully  wrought  out  and  with  so 
close  observance  of  the  rules  of  scientific  investi- 
gation, that  they  established  for  modern  thought 
a  principle  which  had  hovered  before  the  mind  of 

1  p.  153. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  159 

thinkers  since  very  early  times,1  but  which  had 
waited  until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
for  its  definite  confirmation.2 

Again,  as  soon  became  evident,  the  Darwinian 
principles  bear  on  a  wide  variety  of  subjects  which 
are  not  directly  included  in  the  biological  field. 
For  if  physical  characteristics  are  developed  and 
species  originated  through  the  working  of  the  evo- 
lutionary process,  what  is  to  hinder  the  extension 
of  the  same  explanation,  mutatis  mutandis,  to  the 
phenomena  of  mental  development  ?  And  if  mind 
is  evolved,  why  not  morals?  If  morals,  is  there 
any  reason  to  assume  that  social  organisms  are 
exempt  from  the  application  of  the  same  or  similar 
laws  ?  Nay,  so  great  has  been  the  influence  of  the 
theory  in  recent  times,  and  so  contagious  the 
enthusiasm  of  its  advocates,  that  the  world  has 
witnessed  the  extraordinary  spectacle  of  the  whole 
round  of  psychical  products  and  spiritual  institu- 
tions being  considered  from  the  evolutionary  stand- 
point to  the  exclusion  of  other  points  of  view,  or 
even  explained  on  the  basis  of  physiological  or 
biological  development  in  particular. 

The  exaggeration  inherent  in  such  extreme  pre- 

1  Cf.  H.  F.  Osborn,  From  the  Greeks  to  Darwin. 

2  The  reference,  of  course,  is  to  the  general  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion, not  to  special  principles  still  under  debate  by  biologists 
themselves. 


160      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

tensions  will  demand  attention  anon.  Meanwhile, 
it  is  important  to  notice  that  the  extended  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  of  biological  evolution  brings 
it  into  touch  with  a  kindred  theory  of  universal 
significance.  The  enlargement  of  Darwinism  to 
cover  a  wide  variety  of  phenomena  allies  it  with  a 
doctrine  of  very  ancient  origin  which  looks  on  the 
world  as  a  whole  and  in  all  its  parts  as  a  product 
of  development.  In  the  present  age,  a  modern  form 
of  this  doctrine  in  terms  of  general  science  had 
been  originated  by  Herbert  Spencer  quite  before 
the  publication  of  the  Origin  of  Species}  In  the 
latter  work  the  biological  theorist  took  for  his 
central  problem  the  question  of  the  mutability  of 
organic  species  and  the  conditions  of  their  origin. 
The  philosopher  of  science,  on  the  other  hand,  pro- 
posed to  cover  a  broader  field,  seeking  to  trace  out 
not  simply  the  course  of  biological  development, 
but  the  evolution  of  the  entire  phenomenal  uni- 
verse from  star-dust  up  to  mind  and  social  life. 
The  aim  of  the  one  is  a  theory  of  species,  of  the 
other  a  doctrine  of  cosmical  progress.  The  former 
proceeds  by  the  empirical  method  of  inquiry,  the 
latter  mingles  induction  and  deduction,  allowing  to 
the  a  priori  forms  of  inference  an  important  influ- 

1  See  the  Preface  to  the  fourth  edition  of  the  First  Principles, 
1880. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  161 

ence  in  the  determination  of  his  conclusions.  The 
theory  of  Darwin  accounts  for  the  genesis  of 
natural  kinds  through  adaptation  to  environment 
in  virtue  of  natural  selection  under  the  conditions 
of  the  struggle  for  existence  :  Spencer's  "  synthetic 
system  "  explains  the  world  and  life  on  the  basis  of 
"  the  continuous  redistribution  of  matter  and  mo- 
tion." 1  Darwinism  acquires  a  bearing  on  funda- 
mental problems  because  of  its  relations,  for  in 
itself  it  is  no  more  than  the  first  principle  of  a 
special  department  of  science.  The  Spencerian 
philosophy,  although  Mr.  Spencer  understands  by 
philosophy  merely  the  results  of  the  particular 
sciences  in  a  unified  form  and  the  knowledge 
constituted  by  their  fusion  into  a  system,2  is  so 
inclusive  in  its  scope  that  the  synthesis  undertaken 
involves  from  time  to  time  the  transcending  of  the 
limits  of  phenomenal  inquiry. 

Nevertheless,  the  two  theories  are  congruous 
alike  in  their  inner  meaning  and  in  their  ultimate 
significance.     As  biological  evolution  broadens  to 

1  First  Principles,  §  92.  The  familiar  "  law  of  evolution  "  runs 
in  its  completed  form :  "  Evolution  is  an  integration  of  matter 
and  concomitant  dissipation  of  motion ;  during  which  the  matter 
passes  from  a  relatively  indefinite,  incoherent  homogeneity,  to  a 
relatively  definite,  coherent  heterogeneity ;  and  during  which  the 
retained  motion  undergoes  a  parallel  transformation."  First  Prin- 
ciples (Oth  ed.,  1000),  §  145. 

2  First  Principles,  part  II.,  chap.  I. 


162      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

bring  within  the  scope  of  its  central  principle 
classes  of  phenomena  and  departments  of  investi- 
gation to  which  in  the  first  instance  it  does  not 
directly  apply,  it  suggests  the  idea  of  evolution  at 
large,  or,  more  accurately,  issues  in  this.  Cosmical 
evolution,  proceeding  from  abstract  postulates  to 
their  concrete  illustration  rather  than  from  particu- 
lar phenomena  to  the  laws  which  serve  to  explain 
them,  finds  not  merely  one  of  the  sciences  organized 
under  the  idea  of  development,  but  the  principle 
of  development  itself,  and  belief  in  its  validity,  en- 
trenched in  the  scientific  view  of  the  world  and 
rapidly  spreading  thence  to  dominate  the  spirit 
of  the  time.  In .  spite,  therefore,  of  differences  in 
extent,  purpose,  method,  and  result,  the  connection 
of  these  two  forms  of  the  evolution  theory  in  recent 
thinking,  and  even  their  confusion  by  the  popular 
mind,  are  based  upon  an  actual  unity. 

A  similar  variation  in  scope  but  essential  oneness 
of  tendency  will  be  found  to  characterize  these 
movements,  if  they  are  considered  in  their  relations 
to  other  departments  of  thought.  The  immediate 
influence  of  the  Darwinian  theory  was  disturbing 
to  a  notable  degree.  Before  its  value  as  a  principle 
of  scientific  explanation  had  gained  full  apprecia- 
tion, biologists  themselves  were  not  infrequently 
impressed  by  its   destructive  bearing  on  accepted 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  163 

views  of  organic  nature,  rather  than  by  its  inner 
reasonableness  and  its  promise  for  the  future  of 
their  science.  In  a  more  marked  and,  it  may  be 
added,  a  more  painful  way,  it  was  believed  on 
every  hand  that  its  most  direct  and  most  important 
corollary,  should  it  be  established,  would  consist 
in  the  negation  of  philosophical  and  theological 
principles  indispensable  to  the  integrity  or  even  to 
the  survival  of  the  spiritual  life.  By  destroying 
the  older  theory  of  the  genesis  of  species,  Darwin- 
ism, according  to  the  general  opinion  of  the  time, 
not  only  did  away  with  the  chief  argument  in  sup- 
port of  the  theistic  view  of  the  world,1  but  went  far 
to  render  belief  in  God  altogether  impossible.  If 
theism  was  menaced  in  its  philosophical  and  rea- 
soned forms,  much  more  was  evolution  fitted  to 
subvert  the  central  articles  of  the  Christian  faith  ; 
while  so  soon  as  the  wider  implications  of  the 
theory  came  into  view,  in  particular,  when  the 
evolution  of  man  was  added  to  the  evolution  of 
animal  kinds,  the  crisis  reached  a  still  more  serious 
stage  as  the  spectre  of  a  new  materialism  made  its 
appearance  above  the  horizon  of  reflective  thought. 
Evolution,  as  it  now  seemed,  does  not  finish  its 
destructive  work  with  the  negation  of  religion, 
natural  and  revealed,  but  reduces  man  to  the  level 

»  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  125-129. 


1G4      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

of  the  brute  creation.  For  the  authority  of  con- 
science disappears  at  the  proof  of  its  gradual 
development;  nay,  consciousness  itself  must  be 
interpreted  as  a  function  of  material  reality,  if  the 
principle  of  development  is  true  and  if  it  permits 
no  break  between  the  phenomena  of  the  evolving 
brain  and  the  facts  of  the  mental  life. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point  out  to-day  how- 
many  of  these  problems  are  suggested  equally  by 
the  Spencerian  and  the  Darwinian  formulation  of 
the  evolution  principle,  or,  to  return  to  the  histori- 
cal point  of  view,  how  many  of  them  during  the 
last  generation  were  as  a  matter  of  fact  burned  into 
the  consciousness  of  the  time  as  a  joint  result  of  the 
labors  of  the  two  great  English  thinkers.  Nor  is 
the  conclusion  to  be  modified  because  of  our  later 
experience  of  the  constructive  and  reconstructive 
tendencies  of  the  theory  of  development,  in  offset 
to  the  difficulties  it  has  created  and  the  grave 
anxieties  which  it  has  added  to  the  already  heavy 
burden  of  the  age.  Where  the  influence  of  the 
Origin  of  Species  and  the  Descent  of  Man  comes  to 
an  end,  and  where  the  effect  of  the  "  Synthetic 
Philosophy "  begins,  it  would  be  quite  impossible 
to  say,  since  in  fact  the  two  lines  of  influence  have 
not  remained  separate  but  have  joined  in  one.  The 
emphasis  is  different   in    the   two  cases,  and   the 


THE  HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  165 

ground  covered  not  the  same ;  but  in  their  logical 
momentum  the  theories  are  complementary,  the 
one  reaching  as  a  corollary  the  goal  which  the  other 
from  the  beginning  had  in  view.1 

The  historico-genetic  movement  in  later  think- 
ing, therefore,  has  not  been  dependent  on  biological 
evolution  alone.  Even  if  all  the  various  impulses 
which  have  contributed  to  the  origin  of  the  move- 
ment be  left  out  of  view  except  the  evolutionary 
idea,  it  must  still  be  concluded  that  evolution  in  the 
organic  sense  has  been  but  one  of  several  forms  of 
the  theory  of  development  influential  in  the  genesis 
of  nineteenth-century  opinion.  Very  many  minds, 
it  is  true,  especially  in  Britain  and  America,  have 
advanced  to  the  acceptance  of  genetic  principles 
along  the  lines  of  thinking  which  Darwin  opened 
up.  Nay  more,  in  the  case  of  the  English-speaking 
peoples  there  has  been  no  single  force  so  potent  in 
compelling  appreciation  of  the  doctrine  in  all  its 
bearings  as  the  outcome  of  his  researches ;  while  in 
the  civilized  world  at  large  none  can  be  compared 
with  it,  provided  attention  be  confined  to  move- 
ments originating  in  the  field  of  science,  and  none 
perhaps  of  any  kind,  if  the  inquiry  be  limited  to 

1  It  will  be  noted  that  throughout  the  discussion  in  the  text 
abstraction  is  made  from  Mr.  Spencer's  agnosticism  in  order  to 
centre  attention  on  his  philosophy  as  evolution. 


106      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

the  intellectual  history  of  the  last  two  generations. 
But  it  is  equally  beyond  dispute  that  the  complete 
identification  of  biological  evolution  with  cosmical 
evolution,  and  the  tendency,  which  is  frequently 
manifested,  to  coimt  the  former  the  sole  cause  of 
the  transition  to  the  historical  way  of  looking  at 
the  world  and  of  confronting  its  fundamental  prob- 
lems, are  alike  exaggerations  in  which  elements 
that  have  played  important  parts  in  the  develop- 
ment of  opinion  have  been  substituted  for  that 
development  as  a  whole. 

The  accuracy  of  these  conclusions  will  be  con- 
firmed, if  we  extend  our  survey  to  include  the  prog- 
ress of  thought  in  Continental  Europe  instead  of 
confining  the  discussion  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  world. 
For  long  before  Darwin  and  Spencer  had  begun 
their  epoch-making  work,  the  historical  spirit,  and 
with  it  the  beginnings  of  the  doctrine  of  develop- 
ment, had  gained  so  firm  a  hold  upon  the  Teutonic 
mind  that  their  position  was  assured  among  the 
controlling  intellectual  forces  of  the  coming  age.1 
In  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
history  of   ancient  art,  the  history  of   revelation, 

1  Flint  gives  a  succinct  account  of  the  notable  manifestation  of 
the  historical  spirit  in  France  in  the  nineteenth  century  {Historical 
Philosophy  in  France,  1894,  chap.  V.)  ;  and  a  detailed  discussion 
of  recent  French  historical  philosophy,  especially  Comte's  philos- 
ophy of  history  (chap.  VI.-XL). 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  167 

and  the  history  of  humanity  had  in  succession 
been  wrought  out  by  leading  thinkers  who  con- 
ceived them  from  the  genetic  point  of  view.1 
Toward  that  century's  close  and  in  the  opening 
decades  of  the  nineteenth,  the  impulses  favoring 
historical  investigation  which  sprang  up  in  the 
minds  of  the  members  of  the  Romantic  school 
proved  fruitful  sources  of  historical  inquiry  in 
many  different  fields.2  In  its  further  progress,  the 
new  tendency  which  thus  had  found  an  entrance 
into  the  spirit  of  the  time  developed,  on  the  one 
hand,  in  alliance  with  the  philosophy  of  the  epoch, 
and  on  the  other,  blossomed  forth  in  those  famous 
historians  in  the  stricter  meaning  of  the  term  who 
by  their  own  labors  consolidated  the  great  German 
tradition,  as  their  followers  have  continued  it 
down  to  the  present  day. 

In  contrast  to  the  course  of  thought  in  Britain, 
it  is  noteworthy  that  German  historical  thinking 
in  the  period  under  discussion  was  often  colored 
by  philosophical  conceptions,  or  definitely  associated 


1  J.  J.  Winckelmann,  Geschichie  der  Kunst  des  Alterthums,  1764 ; 
G.  E.  Lessing,  Die  Erziehung  des  Menschengeschlechts,  1780;  J.  G. 
von  Herder,  Ideen  zur  Philosophic  der  Geschichte  der  Menschheit, 
1784-1791. 

2  F.  X.  von  Wegele,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Historiographie, 
pp.  977-987 ;  J.  Royce,  The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy,  pp.  273- 
287. 


1G8      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

with  systematic  philosophical  views.  This  phase 
of  the  movement  culminated  in  the  work  of  Hegel. 
The  organizing  principle  of  the  Hegelian  meta- 
physic,  it  is  true,  does  not  in  the  last  analysis  coin- 
cide with  the  historical  position.  The  goal  of  the 
system,  like  its  commencement,  is  reason,  and  the 
conception  of  development  by  which  it  is  pervaded 
dialectical  or  logical  rather  than  of  the  chrono- 
logical type.1  Nevertheless,  the  idea  of  process,  of 
development,  thus  conceived,  is  one  of  the  under- 
lying notions  on  which  the  system  as  a  whole  is 
based,2  —  a  fact  which  of  itself  goes  far  to  explain 
the  stimulus  Hegel's  thinking  gave  to  the  histori- 
cal sciences,  —  and,  secondly,  in  its  finite  manifes- 
tations the  Idea  is  represented  as  realizing  itself  at 
various  stages  under  the  form  of  development  in 
time.  So  in  particular,  in  the  realm  of  spirit, 
reason  progressively  objectifies  itself  in  the  political 
and  social  institutions,  which  proceed  from,  as  they 
express,  the  influence  of  the  spiritual  forces,  and 
culminates  in  the  aesthetic,  the  religious,  and  the 
philosophical  form  of  thought  —  these  themselves 
being  considered  largely  from  the  historical  point 
of   view.     Even   here,  indeed,  the  Hegelian   con- 

1  Cf.  W.  Wallace,  Prolegomena  to  the  Logic  of  Hegel  (2d  ed., 
1894),  chap.  XVII. ;  J.  G.  Hibben,  Hegel's  Logic,  pp.  209-213. 

2  Cf .  Kuno   Fischer,   Geschichte   der   neuern  Philosophic   (Jubi- 
launisausgabe),  Bd.  VIII.,  Th.  I.,  pp.  219-231. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  169 

struction  of  development  and  its  fundamental 
formula  are  a  priori  rather  than  scientific,  ideal- 
istic, or  rationalistic,  and  not  framed  in  terms  of 
ultimate  material  ideas.  But  these  features, 
though  they  render  it  less  familiar  to  thinkers  of 
the  English  race,  detract  in  no  whit  from  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  system ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  the  application  of  the  principle  of  development 
to  mental  and  spiritual  life,  its  idealistic  cast  gives 
it  a  distinct  advantage  over  all  theories  which  ap- 
proach these  manifestations  of  the  universal  spirit 
from  the  direction  of  the  lower  and  specifically 
physical  elements  of  reality. 

The  fruits  of  this  superiority  were  shown  in  the 
connection  of  Hegel ianism  with  the  deeper  inter- 
pretations of  history,  as  described  in  an  earlier  por- 
tion of  the  present  chapter.1  A  second  prominent 
illustration  of  the  power  of  the  Hegelian  ideas  was 
furnished  by  their  influence  on  religious  opinion. 
It  would  be  a  work  of  supererogation  to  enlarge 
upon  the  fact  that  Hegel's  system  profoundly 
affected  theological  as  well  as  metaphysical  think- 
ing. But  it  is  eminently  worthy  of  notice  that  the 
principles  which  gave  his  doctrine  its  revolutionary 
force,  and   the   results  which   these   produced   in 

1  pp.  152-153  ;  cf.  Falckenberg,  op.  cit.,  pp.  500-501 ;  Bernheim, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  529-531. 


170      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

theology,  were  in  many  respects  the  same  as  those 
which  are  agitating  the  religious  world  to-day, 
nearly  three  quarters  of  a  century  after  the  death 
of  the  master  and  the  subsequent  disruption  of  his 
school.  In  the  rush  of  modern  progress  the  eclipse 
of  Idealism  toward  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  has  often  been  taken  for  its  final  disap- 
pearance, little  heed  being  given  to  the  distinction 
between  the  truth  and  the  error  which  it  contains, 
and,  strangest  phenomenon  of  all,  especially  in 
view  of  the  recent  revival  of  idealistic  tendencies, 
with  little  recognition  of  the  kinship  between  cer- 
tain features  of  reflection  to-day  and  the  idealistic 
conclusions,  and  none  whatever  of  the  line  of  in- 
heritance by  which  the  elements  of  the  former 
have  been  handed  down  to  us.  Thus  such  ques- 
tions as  immanence  and  transcendence,  theism  and 
pantheism,  the  natural  and  the  supernatural,  con- 
tinuity and  free  activity,  human  or  divine,  per- 
sonality and  universal  law,  are  often  discussed  in 
the  light  of  recent  formulations  of  the  evolution 
theory,  as  though  the  principle  of  development 
had  never  before  engaged  the  attention  of  thought- 
ful men  and  there  were  no  lessons  to  be  derived 
from  the  earlier  consideration  of  the  serious  prob- 
lems involved.  Or,  to  take  as  a  concrete  example 
one  of  the  burning  questions  of  the  time,  the  debate 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  171 

over  Biblical  criticism  in  many  cases  seems  to  be 
conducted  on  the  assumption  that  the  problem  has 
now  for  the  first  time  crossed  the  threshold  of  the 
mind.  With  singular  short-sightedness  we  look  on 
the  difficulties  which  the  critical  movement  creates 
as  new  and  portentous  products  of  our  own  age, 
forgetful  alike  of  the  rise  of  criticism  during  the 
second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
reinforcement  which  it  received  from  the  anti- 
supernaturalistic  tendencies  inherent  in  the  ideal- 
istic thinking.  So  we  examine  the  Pentateuch 
and  the  Prophetical  books,  as  two  generations  ago 
the  New  Testament  writings  were  subjected  to 
destructive  discussion;  or  we  argue  pro  and  con 
about  the  views  of  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen  and 
Cheyne  and  Driver  and  their  fellow-critics,  half 
unconscious  the  while  of  Strauss  and  Baur  and  the 
Tiibinger,  as  well  as  of  the  speculative  genius  who 
supplied  the  abstract  background  for  many  of  their 
critical  theories. 

The  importance  of  the  historico-evolutionary 
movement,  as  well  as  its  prominence,  is  indicated 
by  the  course  of  its  own  history.  The  discussion 
so  far  has  brought  into  view  its  position  as  a  domi- 
nant factor  in  the  reflection  of  the  present  age. 
To  this  must  now  be  added  the  further  fact  that 
the  movement  gives  promise  of  continued  vitality, 


172      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

that,  in  so  far  as  can  be  judged  prior  to  the  event, 
it  is  likely  to  remain  a  permanent  element  in  cul- 
ture. In  biology  its  validity  has  been  established 
by  proofs  so  highly  probable  that  they  have  gained 
the  acceptance  of  all  investigators  in  the  special 
field,  and  of  scholars  in  ever  widening  circles 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  class  to  which  they  first 
appealed.1  In  general  science  and  in  philosophy 
it  enjoys  the  advantage  now  of  support  from  em- 
pirical inquiries  concerning  various  classes  of  phe- 
nomena, now  of  consonance  with  the  results  of 
modern  speculative  analysis.  As  history  in  the 
restricted  sense,  as  science,  special  or  general,  as 
philosophy  again,  and  in  the  application  of  the 
forms  of  investigation  proper  to  these  several 
branches  of  knowledge  to  subordinate  departments 
of  thought,  it  is  further  accredited  by  its  f  ruitful- 
ness  as  a  method  of  research  and  as  a  principle  of 
explanation. 

Thus  the  ulterior  significance  of  the  movement 
is  to  be  measured  not  merely  by  the  evidence 
in  its  favor,  nor  even  by  the  sweep  of  its  conclu- 
sions, but  also  by  its  power  as  a  constructive  force. 
Constructive,  it  is  true,  it  is  not  in  the  sense  of 
tending  to  rebuild  the  intellectual  or  spiritual  edi- 
fice in  strict  accordance  with  the  old  designs ;  for 

1  Cf.  above,  pp.  157-159. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  173 

in  general,  exact  reconstruction  in  the  matters  of 
the  spirit  is  rarely  more  than  an  alluring  vision, 
while  it  is  implied  in  the  very  statement  of  the 
theory  in  question,  and  of  its  relations  to  earlier 
modes  of  thought,  that  neither  its  recasting  of  old 
problems,  nor  the  new  solutions  which  it  offers, 
can  carry  us  back  to  the  position  occupied  before 
the  present  searching,  doubting  age  began.  In  a 
broader  sense,  however,  it  is  marked  by  the  char- 
acteristic features  of  a  great  constructive  move- 
ment. It  does  not  destroy  old  conclusions  by 
simple  disintegration,  but  also  by  substituting 
others  in  their  room.  The  new  conceptions  and 
theories  first  lift  the  sciences  to  which  they  most 
immediately  apply  to  higher  levels  of  success,  some- 
times re-creating  them  by  the  suggestion  of  prin- 
ciples instinct  with  organizing  power.  Then  they 
extend  their  influence  to  other  departments,  until 
regions  of  knowledge  the  most  distant  and  the 
most  diverse  experience  the  effect  of  the  new 
ideas.  Finally,  new  ways  of  looking  at  the  world 
and  life  are  developed,  new  modes  of  conceiving 
ultimate  speculative  and  religious  problems,  new 
methods  of  dealing  with  the  questions  of  practical 
life.1     The  historical  type  of  reflection,  therefore, 

1  To  a  degree,  also,  the  movement  is  showing  constructive  or 
reconstructive  power  in  a  second  and  more  particular  sense  of  the 


174      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

and  the  doctrine  of  development,  —  the  one  now 
issuing  from  the  other,  now  conditioning  it,  now 
identified  with  it  in  part  or  whole,  —  cannot  be 
looked  on  merely  as  the  distinctive  features  of  a 
passing  phase  of  thought.  Even  before  the  age 
is  ended  in  which  they  have  played  so  large 
a  part,  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude  that  they 
are  destined  to  make  permanent  contribution  to 
intellectual  progress. 

These  conclusions,  however,  hold  good  of  the 
movement  at  large  rather  than  of  its  special  inter- 
pretations. They  do  not  imply  the  accuracy  of  this 
or  that  particular  view  of  history  or  theory  of  evolu- 
tion ;  they  are  not  dependent  on  the  acceptance  of 
some  definite  philosophy  of  development  or  of  the 
various  speculative  corollaries  which  may  have  been 
deduced  from  it.  Least  of  all  do  they  lend  their 
sanction  to  the  exaggerations  of  the  doctrine  which 
have  so  much  engaged  the  attention  of  thoughtful 
minds  in  recent  times.  After  a  considerable  period 
of  controversy  and  confusion,  it  has  become  plain 
that  in  the  historico-genetic  method  and  the  prin- 
ciple of  evolution  the  age  has  made  additions  of 
notable  value  to  the  intellectual  possessions  of  the 

term;  as,  within  limits  which  have  been  pointed  out,  it  tends  to 
restore  the  principles  of  intellectual  and  practical  belief  which  at 
first  it  brought  into  question  or  appeared  to  invalidate.  Cf.  chap. 
111.,  pp.  118-119,  127-129;  also,  chap.  VII.,  pp.  325-326. 


THE   HISTOEICAL   SPIRIT  175 

race.  Moreover,  the  claim  of  the  ardent  advocates 
of  the  newer  thinking  that  a  readjustment  of  tradi- 
tional principles  is  necessary  in  view  of  their  dis- 
coveries, is  also  to  be  recognized  as  well-founded. 
Or  rather,  it  is  evident  that  this  revision  has  for  some 
time  past  been  actually  going  on  in  various  depart- 
ments of  thought ;  for  no  movement  of  such  scope 
and  influence  can  fail  greatly  to  alter  the  course  of 
human  thinking  so  soon  as  its  truth  becomes  appar- 
ent. But  it  is  just  here  that  the  danger  lies.  The 
essential  novelty  of  the  doctrine,  in  spite  of  the 
manifold  anticipations  of  it  since  reflective  thought 
began,  and  its  great  success,  have  so  impressed  the 
thinkers  of  the  time  that  not  a  few  seem  to  act  as 
though  it  enjoyed  an  exclusive  title  to  be  con- 
sidered full  and  final  truth.  But  if  this  be  so,  our 
age  will  indeed  be  memorable  as  an  epoch  in  men- 
tal development,  as  hitherto  no  one  principle  or 
group  of  principles  has  ever  proved  of  so  preemi- 
nent importance  that  it  has  deserved  to  be  made  the 
ultimate  criterion  of  truth,  to  the  entire  transfor- 
mation or  rejection  of  the  achievements  of  preceding 
ages.  Happily  the  error  is  one  which  brings  its 
own  correction.  The  buoyant  optimism  which 
extends  the  influence  of  a  new  theory  beyond 
the  limits  of  its  legitimate  application  appears 
to  be  a  necessary  part  of    the  enthusiastic   spirit 


17G      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

which  enables  the  pathfinders  of  thought  to  carry 
forward  the  work  of  intelligence  to  its  utmost 
bounds.  The  audacity  of  their  ventures  in  the 
discovery  of  new  principles,  or  in  the  development 
of  them,  itself  opens  up  reaches  of  truth  that  other- 
wise might  have  remained  quite  unexplored.  For 
if  the  leaders  were  sensible  from  the  start  of  all 
the  difficulties  which  beset  their  quest,  courage 
and  concentration  would  be  lacking  for  the  enter- 
prise on  which  they  are  bent,  and  so  the  mind  be 
disappointed  in  even  its  reasonable  expectations  of 
gain.  At  the  same  time,  the  consequences  of  their 
overconfident  activity  supply  the  opportunity  for 
the  restriction  of  the  given  doctrine  to  its  proper 
sphere.  Thus  it  is  with  the  case  which  is  under 
consideration.  As  plainly  as  the  student  of  the 
history  of  opinion  discerns  the  significance  of  the 
principles  in  question,  so  clearly  does  he  further 
perceive  that  their  early  triumphs  are  to  be  fol- 
lowed, more  accurately,  that  they  are  being  fol- 
lowed, by  that  inevitable  process  of  criticism  which 
gradually  separates  the  elements  of  permanent 
worth  in  new  systems  from  the  elements  of  error 
and  incompleteness  which  also  they  are  certain  to 
contain  until  thought  shall  have  reached  its  final 
goal.  Aided  by  such  a  sifting  process,  the  reflec- 
tion of  later  times  may  be  expected  to  reap   the 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  177 

benefits  of  these  discoveries  of  the  present,  while  it 
will  escape  many  of  the  dangers  which  for  us  have 
entered  in  their  train. 

An  essential  and  salutary  phase  of  this  criticism 
applies  the  distinction  between  science  and  philoso- 
phy to  the  case  in  hand.1  The  necessity  for 
insisting  on  the  distinction  in  the  premises  has 
often  been  emphasized  by  recent  philosophical 
writers.  In  general,  it  has  been  pointed  out  by 
them  anew  that  there  is  an  important  difference 
between  scientific  formulae  and  metaphysical  prin- 
ciples, between  empirical  laws  and  the  speculative 
interpretations  to  which  they  may  give  rise.  More 
specifically,  they  have  shown  the  doubtful  char- 
acter of  the  inference  from  phenomenal  to  ontologi- 
cal  development,  except  after  careful  investigation 
of  the  critical  problems  involved;  have  directed 
attention  to  the  difficulties  that  from  the  beginnings 
of  speculative  inquiry  have  surrounded  conceptions 
such  as  change  and  becoming,  evolution  and  devel- 
opment, but  which  in  recent  usage  have  for  the 
most  part  been  passed  over  with  confident  haste ; 
have  called  in  question  the  equation  of  succession 
in  time  with  development  from  or  into ;  have  laid 
bare  the  ill-success  of  the  endeavor  to  minimize 
the    significance   of    the   breaks   which    intervene 

»  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  101-104. 

N 


178      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

between  the  several  spheres  of  actual  existence  or 
to  bridge  the  gaps ;  and  have  noted  the  variation 
to  which  the  principle  of  evolution  is  of  necessity 
subject  in  passing  from  one  to  the  other  of  the 
varieties  of  phenomenal  reality. 

In  order,  however,  that  opinion  may  find  its 
level,  continued  heed  must  be  given  to  such  sug- 
gestions. For  the  controversy  over  the  historico- 
evolutionistic  mode  of  thought,  and  the  results  in 
which  the  movement  itself  has  issued,  have  fur- 
nished a  singularly  impressive  illustration  of  the 
abnormal  character  of  recent  thinking.  Though 
perplexed  by  the  negative  bearings  of  the  conclu- 
sions most  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  time, 
nay,  in  part  because  of  this  perplexity,  we  have  been 
tempted  to  hail  as  instruments  of  universal  value 
those  elements  in  the  newer  reflection  which  have 
given  evidence  of  constructive  power.  Suspicious 
of  speculative  ventures,  in  many  cases  even  con- 
temptuous in  our  rejection  of  all  attempts  to  solve 
the  problems  of  metaphysics,  we  have  pressed  the 
results  of  empirical  inquiry,  too  often  without 
adequate  preliminary  consideration,  home  to  their 
ultimate  consequences  in  relation  to  the  principles 
of  thought  and  action.  Never  is  there  greater 
need  for  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  history  of 
opinion  and  appreciation  of  the  lessons  which  it  in- 


THE   HISTORICAL  SPIRIT  179 

culcates,  never  is  patient  reflection  on  the  fundamen- 
tal problems  more  in  place,  than  when  in  periods  of 
intellectual  disturbance  advantage  is  to  be  taken 
of  new  discoveries  or  recently  formulated  theories 
to  frame  fresh  answers  to  the  questions  of  all  time. 
But  seldom  has  the  task  been  undertaken  with 
greater  neglect  of  these  obvious  precautions  than 
by  the  majority  of  those  who  have  debated  the 
principle  of  evolution  in  the  generation  just  ended, 
and,  it  must  in  truth  be  added,  by  many  who 
are  still  engaged  in  tracing  out  its  implications  in 
different  departments  of  inquiry. 

This  neglect,  like  the  heat  which  the  discussion 
too  often  has  engendered,  has  not  been  confined  to 
either  of  the  parties  to  the  debate.  Combined,  the 
ardor  and  the  haste  have  operated  to  confuse  the 
issue  and  postpone  the  due  adjustment  of  opinion, 
the  balance  of  truth  and  error  being  obscured 
because  neither  side  could  view  the  case  without 
prejudice,  as  neither,  on  the  other  hand,  was  cog- 
nizant of  all  the  data  necessary  for  an  accurate 
judgment.  A  characteristic  phase  of  the  move- 
ment may  be  cited  in  illustration  of  the  truth  at 
large.  The  study  of  things  in  their  origins  and 
the  method  of  genetic  explanation  have  already 
been  specified  as  forming  a  significant  element  in 
the  intellectual  advance  of  the  present  age.     But 


180      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

it  is  evident  that  the  later  type  of  reflection  lends 
itself  to  exaggeration  as  well  as  the  one  which 
it  supplanted ;  and  that  in  order  to  ascertain  the 
limits  of  its  validity,  attention  must  be  directed 
not  simply  to  its  phenomenal  applications,  but  also 
to  the  fundamental  conceptions  on  which  it  ulti- 
mately depends.1  For  what  in  the  last  analysis  do 
genesis  and  evolution  mean  ?  and  what  growth 
and  development?  And  in  view  of  the  best 
attainable  solutions  for  problems  such  as  these, 
does  origin  from  antecedent  conditions  imply 
identity  between  the  result  and  the  sources  whence 
it  has  proceeded  ?  Or,  as  of  late  has  been  vigor- 
ously urged  in  renewal  of  ancient  and  classic  doc- 
trine, is  not  the  question  of  origin  quite  different 
from  the  questions  of  nature,  of  significance,  of 
worth,  which  can  be  determined  only  after  consid- 
eration of  the  completed  product  ?  Or,  to  turn  to 
specific  examples,  is  man  less  man  because  he  is 
descended  from  an  ape  ?  Does  right  become 
wrong,  and  is  wrong  right,  if  conscience  is  the  out- 
come of  development?  Does  political  obligation 
disappear  with  the  belief  that  the  state  is  an  arti- 
fact ?  Is  God  banished  from  his  world,  when  men 
conceive  it    as   the  manifestation  of  a  divine    in- 

1  For  an  extreme  statement  of  this  position,  cf.  B.  P.  Bowne, 
Methodist  Review,  1S93,  pp.  681  ff.,  and  849  ff. 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  181 

dwelling  power  rather  than  as  the  outcome  of  a 
single  creative  act  ? 

Obviously  the  answers  to  such  questions  will 
vary  with  the  case  in  hand ;  although  this  again  is 
a  principle  which  has  been  all  too  dimly  discerned 
hi  the  earlier  consideration  of  the  subject.  Psychi- 
cal origin  is  not  the  same  as  physical  genesis. 
Moral,  social,  religious  development,  each  has  its 
own  momenta,  even  if  it  be  possible  to  bring  them 
all  under  some  one  comprehensive  law  ;  and  these, 
their  several  peculiarities,  must  be  taken  into 
account,  whether  the  point  at  issue  be  the  nature 
of  the  evolved  result  as  dependent  in  part  or 
whole  upon  antecedent  conditions,  or  the  position 
to  be  assigned  it  in  the  scale  of  values.  In  so  far, 
however,  as  it  is  possible  to  reach  a  decision  of 
a  general  kind,  it  may  be  concluded  that  neither 
of  the  opposing  parties  is  in  exclusive  possession  of 
the  truth.  If  the  one  busies  itself  too  much  with 
the  study  of  origins,  —  the  origin  of  man,  the 
genesis  of  conscience,  the  beginnings  of  the  state, 
of  society,  of  religion,  —  the  other  sometimes 
seems  to  imagine  that  the  opinions  of  its  antago- 
nists can  be  dismissed  with  a  simple  statement  of 
contrary  views.  It  is  idle  to  announce  some 
sweeping  conclusion  which  assumes  that  facts  of 
origin  and  growth  have  no  bearing  whatever  on 


182      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

questions  of  nature  and  of  worth  ;  for  it  is  easy 
to  prove  that  in  cases  not  a  few  the  way  in  which 
a  thing  has  come  about  of  right  exercises  an  im- 
portant influence  alike  upon  our  understanding  of 
the  thing  itself  and  upon  our  estimates  of  its 
significance.  Man  remains  human,  whatever  his 
ancestry  may  have  been.  But  the  anthropology 
of  the  present  day  is  written  in  a  different  sense 
from  that  in  which  the  science  was  conceived 
before  Darwin  had  done  his  work.  The  earlier 
pessimistic  views  of  the  relation  of  evolution  to 
ethics  have  happily  given  place  to  more  sober  and 
more  hopeful  conclusions  concerning  the  perma- 
nent validity  of  morals.  But  it  is  beyond  question 
that  certain  long-accepted  theories  of  man's 
practical  nature,  and  certain  views  of  the  authority 
of  conscience,  have  been  driven  back  before  the 
advance  of  evolutionary  doctrine.  Religion  en- 
dures, and  the  theistic  conception  of  the  world. 
Yet  who  can  ignore  the  stress  of  thought  which 
has  proceeded  from  the  effect  of  historical  inves- 
tigation on  theological  opinion,  and  from  the 
necessity  for  bringing  faith  into  harmony  with  the 
outcome  of  secular  reflection. 

It  is  impossible,  on  the  other  hand,  not  to  agree 
in  principle  with  those  who  reject  the  assumption 
that  the  ultimate  criteria  of  fact  and  meaning  are 


THE   HISTORICAL   SPIRIT  183 

to  be  found  in  genetic  history  alone.  For  the 
state  of  the  case  in  regard  to  this  particular  ques- 
tion is  the  same  as  that  which  we  have  found  it 
to  be  in  regard  to  the  historico-evolutionary  move- 
ment in  general :  in  spite  of  the  vaunted  critical 
caution  of  the  age,  recent  thinking  has  often  been 
guilty,  if  not  precisely  of  the  fallacy  of  hasty  gen- 
eralization, yet  of  another  which  is  equally  fatal 
to  accurate  reasoning  although  it  is  not  commonly 
set  down  in  the  logics,  the  fallacy  of  hasty  and 
exclusive  application  in  the  employment  of  a  new 
theory  of  inherent  and  comprehensive  value.  And 
the  remedy  is  also  the  same  as  before :  not  de- 
spising the  efforts  of  the  enthusiastic  leaders  of 
thought,  above  all  without  abandoning  the  well- 
grounded  results  of  their  labors,  we  still  must 
carefully  examine  their  methods  of  procedure  and 
the  conclusions  readied,  in  order  to  correlate  the 
newer  thought  with  other  valid  principles,  whether 
they  be  of  earlier  or  of  later  date.  Careful  reflec- 
tion alone  can  draw  just  inferences  from  a  mass 
of  fresh  facts  and  revolutionary  theories  presented 
to  the  mind  of  an  age  already  beset  with  problems 
which  tax  to  the  utmost  its  powers  of  solution. 
Change  there  must  be  in  such  circumstances,  in 
consequence  of  the  intellectual  advance.  But  the 
greater  the  change,  the  greater  even  the  revelation 


184      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

of  truth  which  is  made,  the  greater  the  danger 
that  its  ulterior  implications  will  at  first  be  mis- 
conceived ;  the  broader  the  scope  of  the  new  doc- 
trine, the  more  important  its  bearings  on  general 
views  of  the  world  and  of  human  life,  the  more 
imperative  it  becomes  that  the  conditions  of  nor- 
mal intellectual  progress  should  govern  its  own 
development. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE   RELATION  OF  THOUGHT  TO  SOCIAL 
MOVEMENTS 

Among  the  salient  characteristics  of  transitional 
eras  which  have  been  brought  to  light  by  the  gen- 
eral discussion  of  these  ages  of  change,  the  relation 
of  thought  to  political  and  civil  history  is  of  pri- 
mary importance.1  In  no  one  of  the  great  eras 
of  transition  has  the  ferment  in  abstract  think- 
ing been  unattended  by  parallel  disturbances  in 
the  state  and  in  society  :  in  more  than  one,  the 
political  and  social  movement  has  constituted  a 
principal  element  in  the  transitional  movement 
as  a  whole.  Speaking  broadly,  this  fact  may  be 
classed  with  the  other  typical  phenomena  which, 
toward  the  close  of  a  period  of  decadence  and 
the  beginning  of  a  new  age,  result  from  the  gen- 
eral unsettled  condition  of  affairs.  In  such  epochs 
thought  and  life  alike  experience  the  effects  of  the 
mood  of  unrest  which  has  seized  upon  the  spirit 
of  the  time  and  the  longing  for  new  forms  or 
formulas   in   place   of    the   old,    which    now    are 

i  Cf.  chap.  L,  pp.  23-26. 
186 


186      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

deemed  effete.  Political  theories  are  no  more 
secure  against  the  attacks  of  destructive  criti- 
cism than  systems  of  metaphysics.  The  ideas 
which  lie  at  the  basis  of  secular  society  may  be 
brought  into  question  as  well  as  the  foundations 
of  religious  belief.  Scepticism  is  as  destructive  of 
the  principles  of  political  and  social  morality  as 
it  is  of  the  ethics  of  individual  life.  The  same 
conclusion  holds  moreover  in  regard  to  political 
and  social  practice.  Now  intellectual  or  religious 
freedom,  now  civil  liberty,  becomes  the  goal  of  the 
leaders  as  they  break  with  the  traditions  of  the 
past;  the  religious  tumults  of  one  age  are  paral- 
leled by  the  social  disorders  of  its  fellow  a  few 
centuries  later  in  the  history  of  the  world;  the 
license  accorded  to  individual  passion  in  times  of 
moral  doubt  has  its  counterpart  in  the  outbreaks 
of  disorder  among  classes  in  the  community  whose 
impulses  or  whose  needs  lead  them  to  rise  when 
they  conceive  that  the  restraints  of  the  traditional 
authority  are  no  longer  of  binding  force.1 

1  In  illustration  of  the  conclusions  of  the  text  a  few  examples 
may  be  cited  as  representative  of  a  numerous  class :  the  treason- 
able practices  of  the  Spartan  sympathizers  in  Athens  during  the 
Peloponnesian  war;  the  Peasants'  war  in  the  early  Reformation; 
the  disorders  of  the  French  Revolution  and  the  succeeding  period, 
which  are  considered  in  more  detail  below.  Cf.  H.  Contzen,  Ge- 
schkhte  der  socialen  Frage,  pp.  91  ff. 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS      187 

In  themselves,  therefore,  the  political  and  social 
changes  which  take  place  in  eras  of  transition  are 
integral  factors  in  the  movement  of  the  age.  As 
snch,  they  should  not  hastily  be  reckoned  second- 
ary or  derivative  phenomena,  since  often  they 
amount  to  original  and  independent  tendencies, 
with  an  influential  part  to  play  in  the  progress  of 
culture.  There  is  a  further  aspect  of  the  matter, 
however,  in  reference  to  which  the  relation  of 
these  more  concrete  movements  to  the  develop- 
ment of  opinion  gains  added  meaning  :  over  and 
above  the  instances  in  which  they  owe  their  genesis 
to  causes  acting  within  their  own  sphere,  there  are 
other  cases,  and  these  very  numerous,  in  which  in 
whole  or  part  they  are  motived  by  suggestions 
coming  to  the  mind  of  the  time  from  its  labors  in 
other  fields.  And  always,  whether  the  political 
and  social  ferment  is  self-engendered  or  to  a  degree 
a  derived  result,  because  of  its  close  connection 
with  practical  interests,  its  bearing  on  the  general 
views  of  the  world  and  life  which  the  age  adopts, 
and,  conversely,  because  of  the  effect  on  it  of  favored 
principles  in  philosophy,  in  religion,  of  ethical 
theory  and  practice,  it  takes  its  place  along  with 
the  moving  forces  of  the  time.  For  here  is  given 
a  prerogative  instance  of  the  interaction  of  thought 
and  life.     Alterations  in  the  principles  on  which 


188      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

the  social  edifice  directly  rests,  or  in  ideas  which 
condition  its  existence  as  effectively  as  these,  if 
more  remotely,  lead  on  to  changes,  even  to  dis- 
orders in  society.  The  progress  of  social  change, 
and  the  outbreaks  which  so  often  accompany  the 
endeavor  to  do  away  with  evils  believed  to  be  prey- 
ing on  the  life  of  the  social  organism,  contribute  to 
the  development  of  opinion.  So  intimate,  indeed, 
is  the  relation  of  thought  to  life,  that  for  the  most 
part  the  several  phases  of  action  and  reaction  can- 
not be  separately  exhibited.  Theory  and  practice 
enter  as  interwoven  strands  into  the  spiritual  his- 
tory of  the  age.  Reflective  analysis  enables  the 
investigator,  now  with  considerable  confidence, 
now,  it  must  be  confessed,  with  a  degree  of  success 
which  is  little  better  than  failure,  to  consider 
apart  the  various  tendencies  which  contribute  to 
the  joint  result.  But  in  reality  these  are  never 
completely  sundered ;  it  is  only  as  their  promi- 
nence in  the  one  composite  movement  varies  that 
it  is  possible  to  determine  their  relative  significance. 
In  different  degrees  the  phenomena  of  social 
disturbance  have  characterized  all  the  several  eras 
of  transition.  For  the  modern  mind,  however,  the 
most  conspicuous  illustration  of  the  connection  of 
intellectual  and  social  development  is  furnished  by 
the  history  of  the  Western  world  during  the  eigh- 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS      189 

teenth  and  nineteenth  centuries.  This  period  —  or 
rather,  these  two  periods,  which  for  the  present 
purpose  may  be  considered  one  —  has  been  marked 
alike  by  the  intensity  of  its  reflective  doubt,  by  the 
magnitude  of  the  political  and  social  revolutions 
which  in  it  have  altered  the  aspect  of  the  civilized 
world,  and  by  the  constant  influence  which  each  of 
these  contrasted  forces  of  change  has  exercised  on 
the  development  of  its  fellow.1  Even  the  demand 
for  intellectual  liberty  and  the  endeavor  after 
emancipation  from  traditional  forms  of  dogma 
have  struck  at  the  basis  of  the  existing  political 
and  social  organization.  In  the  majority  of  in- 
stances, at  least  when  the  age  was  young,  church 
and  state  were  welded  together  in  the  order  by 
law  established.  Therefore  the  disturbance  in 
matters  of  belief  of  necessity  precipitated  difficul- 
ties in  the  government  of  the  political  body,  pro- 
duced disorders,  in  fact,  analogous  to  those  which 
in  like  circumstances  have  troubled  the  course  of 
thought  and  history  in  other  critical  eras  of  the 
world. 2 

But  the  relation  of  religious  belief  to  social 
progress  in  the  era  under  consideration  has  been 

1  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp.  62-86. 

2  E.g.  the  struggle  between  Christianity  and  paganism  for 
supremacy  in  the  Roman  Empire;  the  disturbances  which  accom- 
panied the  establishment  of  Protestantism  in  Catholic  states. 


190      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

not  only  legal,  but  vital.  Whether  imposed  by 
law,  or  believed  in  freedom,  the  accepted  creed 
has  been  much  more  than  a  matter  of  enactment. 
Together  with  the  system  of  reasoned  principles  in 
which  it  was  traditionally  grounded,  it  has  formed 
an  essential  part  of  the  framework  of  the  social 
organism.  In  France,  for  instance,  under  the  old 
regime,  the  faith  of  Rome  occupied  so  central  a 
position  in  the  national  life  that  it  has  maintained 
itself  as  the  typical  form  of  religion  ever  since,  in 
spite  of  the  power  of  French  scepticism  in  the  past, 
and  the  prevalence  of  free-thinking  down  to  the 
present  day.  For  before  the  great  upheaval  of 
the  Revolution,  it  was  the  religion  of  the  people  as 
well  as  of  the  state,  the  faith  by  which  the  believer 
lived  and  died,  and  with  the  observance  of  whose 
forms  the  scoffer's  life  was  outwardly  conducted, 
however  much  his  inner  conviction  might  belie  the 
usage.  It  was  the  belief  accepted  in  the  peasant's 
hut  and  in  the  royal  palace,  the  cult  which  drew 
to  every  village  church  as  to  every  famous  minister 
a  congregation  of  sincere  and  faithful  worshippers, 
the  great  spiritual  system  wmich  spoke  through 
literature  and  found  itself  enshrined  in  splendid 
art.  In  short,  Christianity  in  its  Roman  form  had 
so  entered  into  the  national  consciousness,  had 
gained  so  great  a  hold  on  the  spirit  of  the  people, 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      191 

that  in  part  it  had  become  the  foundation  of  French 
society,  contributing  to  this  the  principles  of  its 
ethical  and  spiritual  life.  Hence,  when  the  faith 
was  challenged  and  then  brought  into  disrepute, 
the  body  social  also  felt  the  strain.  Since  the 
religious  and  the  social  order  to  a  great  extent 
were  one,  the  weakening  of  either  inevitably 
created  danger  for  the  continuance  of  the  other. 
Negative  opinion  prepared  the  way  for  civil  dis- 
order. Rebellion  in  the  state  reacted  in  favor  of 
the  tendency  toward  unbelief.  As  the  secular 
revolt  proceeded,  the  loosening  of  religious  ties 
removed  a  restraining  influence  which  much  was 
needed  to  hold  the  forces  of  lawlessness  in  check ; 
and  after  the  abrogation  of  the  old  ecclesiastical 
system,  the  cult  of  reason  and  the  praise  of  civic 
virtue  proved  but  flimsy  barriers  against  the  claims 
of  passion  or  of  greed. 

Apart  from  the  struggle  for  spiritual  emanci- 
pation, the  social  outcome  of  the  epoch  may  be 
ascribed  to  the  influence  of  two  closely  connected 
movements,  the  contest  for  civil  libert}',  and  the 
endeavor  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  lower 
classes  in  society.  The  first  of  these  has  enlisted 
in  its  service  a  wide  variety  of  interests.  Toward 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  mutterings 
of  revolt  long  heard  in  France  found  a  counterpart 


192      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

in  the  rebellion  of  the  American  colonies  of  Eng- 
land, the  older  movement  in  its  turn  gaining  rein- 
forcement from  the  issue  of  the  strife  beyond  the 
seas  for  the  wilder  and  more  destructive  conflict  at 
home.     The  excesses  of  the  European  conflict  ere- 
long produced  reaction  ;   reaction,  opposed  by  the 
dampened  but  never  extinguished  spirit  of  freedom, 
led  to  fresh  outbreaks  of  rebellion.     But  however 
far  in  the  one  direction  or  the  other  the  pendulum 
has  swung  —  repression  following  revolt  and  revolt 
engendered  by  repression  —  the  movement  for  the 
abolition  of  tyranny  and  the   enfranchisement  of 
peoples  has  continued  to  make  substantial  progress 
down  to  the  present  day.      The  establishment  of 
the  North  American  republic  has  furthered,  rather 
than  hindered,  the  liberalization  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  Mother-land.     After  many  vicissitudes 
France  is  republican  in  fact  as  in  name,  despite  the 
strength  of  the  reactionary  elements — the  army, 
the  church,  the  royalist  and  imperialistic  remnants 
—  by  which  her  inner  peace  is   menaced,  and  the 
violence  of  class  and  party  spirit,  which  restricts 
the  enjoyment  of  liberty  within  her  borders.     Ger- 
many has  been  delivered  from   the  rule  of  petty 
princelings    and  the  weaknesses    incident    to  her 
divided  condition,  even  though  the  faults  of   her 
present  organization  warrant  apprehension  for  the 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      193 

future  of  the  new  imperial  state.  If  Italy  stands 
face  to  face  with  pressing  problems  of  the  social 
order,  as  well  as  with  difficulties  of  finance,  she  has 
been  redeemed  from  Papal  domination  and  united 
under  a  single  head,  the  liberal  monarchy  taking  the 
place  of  the  government  of  many  minor  rulers. 
Russia  is  torn  by  discontent  and  plots  and  borne 
down  by  the  weight  of  her  autocratic  system,  so 
that  color  of  reason  is  given  to  the  efforts  of  those 
misguided  men  who  seek  to  overthrow  all  political 
authority  in  their  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing 
form ;  yet  she  has  freed  the  serfs,  and  of  late  her 
present  emperor  has  given  voice  to  the  fondest 
wish  of  modern  industrial  society,  the  longing  for 
settled  peace.  In  the  East  the  Turk  still  sits,  with 
his  title  to  kill  and  maim,  to  the  shame  of 
Christendom,  preserved  intact;  but  though  the  Sick 
Man  lingers,  the  measure  of  his  iniquity  is  long 
since  full,  and  as  in  the  past  he  has  been  shorn  of 
lands  and  power,  so  we  may  hope  some  day  to  see 
the  entire  extinction  of  his  barbarous  rule.  In 
fine,  throughout  the  Western  world  the  last  cen- 
tury and  a  half  has  been  characterized  by  a  devel- 
opment of  civil  liberty  which  distinguishes  it  from 
all  other  epochs  in  history.1 

1  The  examples  cited  do  not  include,  of  course,  all  the  facts  in 
the  case,  many  movements  being  omitted  which  would  appear  in 
a  complete  historical  statement. 


194      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

With  the  enfranchisement  of  nations  the  estab- 
lishment of  equality  among  the  citizens,  at  least  in 
theory,  has  gone  hand  in  hand.  Together,  they 
lead  to  a  third  principal  factor  in  the  social  prog- 
ress of  the  era,  the  demand  of  the  lower  classes  in 
society  for  relief  from  want  or  for  a  larger  share  of 
the  rewards  of  labor,  and  the  attempts  which  have 
been  made  to  satisfy  their  needs.  This  influence 
has  often  cut  deeper  into  the  foundations  of  so- 
ciety than  the  conflict  for  civil  liberty;  and,  in 
more  instances  than  one  in  the  period  under  con- 
sideration, has  supplied  the  impulse  from  which 
political  movements  have  proceeded.  It  was  dire 
suffering,  for  example,  which  opened  the  breach 
between  the  seigneurs  in  France  and  the  starving 
peasants  who  for  centuries  had  looked  to  the  nobles 
as  their  rightful  lords.  It  has  been  the  altered 
conditions  of  life,  individual  and  social,  produced 
by  industrial  evolution,  that  have  formed  one 
principal  cause  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  later 
theories  of  social  organization.  It  is  in  large 
measure  the  misery  endured  by  the  denizens  of  city 
slums  to-day  that  favors  the  spread  of  the  socialistic 
and  anarchistic  movements  of  the  time.  The  gulf 
between  the  social  classes,  the  cruel  misery  of  the 
poor,  the  longing  for  material  betterment,  these 
have  been  in  the  past,  as  they  still  remain,  prolific 


THOUGHT  AND  SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS      195 

sources  of  that  dissatisfaction  with  the  existing 
social  order  by  which  the  germs  of  political  change 
are  naturally  fostered. 

Of  itself  alone,  moreover,  the  movement  which 
aims  at  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the 
poor  has  in  its  various  phases  given  rise  to  some 
of  the  most  remarkable  phenomena  of  the  age. 
Created  by  disturbing  economic,  political,  and  social 
conditions,  the  demand  for  relief  has  grown  as  the 
age  has  gone  on,  not  only  because  of  the  heavy 
burdens  which  press  upon  certain  classes  in  the 
community,  but  also  because  modern  industrial 
development,  in  multiplying  the  goods  of  life,  has 
enlarged  the  desires  of  the  poor  in  regard  to  them  ; 
while  at  the  same  time  the  progress  of  the  world 
in  civilization,  in  education,  in  refinement,  has 
opened  the  eyes  of  the  proletaire  to  larger  views  of 
what  he  needs  in  order  to  lead  a  truly  human  ex- 
istence.1 On  the  other  hand,  an  essential  element 
in  the  situation  is  to  be  found  in  the  disposition  of 
the  higher  classes  to  sympathize  with  the  efforts 
of  the  lower,  or  even,  when  the  strivings  of  the 
latter  are  kept  within  due  bounds,  to  help  them  on 
their  way  to  success.  For  the  rising  of  the  poor, 
which  was  begun  amid  the  contempt  of  their  supe- 

1  Cf.    Stuckenberg,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Sociology,  pp. 
213-244. 


196      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

riors  in  wealth  and  station,  has  succeeded  in  gain- 
ing the  sympathy,  often  even  the  active  assistance, 
of  the  great  majority  of  enlightened  men.  The  un- 
wearied discussion  nowadays  of  the  various  social 
problems  is  only  less  impressive  than  the  efforts 
which  are  constantly  making  to  assist  those  for 
whom  such  questions  are  matters  of  practical 
anxiety  rather  than  of  academic  debate.  Among 
the  educated  there  is  a  general  interest  in  all  plans 
for  social  betterment,  Charitable  and  religious 
persons  are  eager  to  gain  a  clearer  insight  than  they 
now  possess  into  the  causes  of  social  discontent,  in 
order  that  they  may  participate  in  the  effort  for 
its  removal.  The  expert  of  the  chair,  who,  trained 
to  discuss  such  questions  with  scientific  calm,  at 
first  approaches  the  subject  as  part  of  his  profes- 
sional labors,  is  often  numbered  in  the  event  with 
the  ardent  leaders  of  reform.  The  political  leader 
not  only  finds  a  new  attitude  needful  on  the  part  of 
his  government,  if  it  is  to  be  successful  in  main- 
taining the  authority  of  the  state,  but  is  impelled 
by  nobler  reasons  also  to  cooperate  in  the  attempt 
to  succor  the  distressed  members  of  the  community. 
Churchmen  are  moved  to  the  same  end  by  purest 
Christian  feeling  as  well  as  by  the  necessity  for  ad- 
justing religion  and  theology  to  the  altered  circum- 
stances of  the  time.     So  the  movement  from  below 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      197 

is  furthered  by  the  sympathy  coming  from  above, 
until  society  in  its  whole  extent  is  affected  by  its 
influence. 

These  three  movements  in  recent  history,  then, 
have  helped  concentrate  the  thinking  of  the  time 
on  social  questions.1  This  tendency  of  later 
thought,  in  turn,  has  been  promoted  by  the  gen- 
eral intellectual  development  of  the  age.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  thought,  scientific  and  specula- 
tive alike,  was  for  the  most  part  characterized  by 
the  adoption  of  an  individualistic,  or  even  an  atom- 
istic, point  of  view,  to  the  subordination  of  the 
organic  and  the  collective.  Now  one  of  the  gravest 
difficulties  of  the  time  is  to  keep  within  due  bounds 
the  forces  which  favor  integration,  in  particular  to 
defend  the  independence  and  the  worth  of  the  indi- 
vidual against  the  suggestions  of  opposite  doctrine 
which  come  from  prevailing  monistic  theories.2 
Science  at  large  involves  us  in  a  system  of  pitiless 
mechanical  law.  Organic  and  social  science  suggest 
the  possible  existence  of  unities  higher  than  the 
individual  consciousness.  History  joins  with  both 
to  bring  the  material  and  the  mental  world,  the 
unit  and  the  group,  under  the  principle  of  develop- 

1  The  remainder  of  chap.  V.  appeared  in  the  Hartford  Seminary 
Record,  May,  1902. 

2  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  117-122 ;  chap.  IV.,  pp.  152-157. 


198      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

ment.  Philosophy  takes  up  the  strain,  when,  in- 
deed, it  does  not  reach  the  principle  of  its  own 
initiative.  Religion  and  theology  discover  that 
they  too  must  take  into  consideration  the  new  in- 
terpretations which  are  being  put  upon  the  facts  of 
nature  and  the  life  of  man.  The  problems  which 
this  trend  of  thought  suggests,  in  particular  the 
serious  questions  which  it  raises  in  the  field  of 
ethics  and  theology,  are  to  be  counted  among  the 
losses  which  great  intellectual  changes  inevitably 
occasion.  But  on  the  credit  side  of  the  balance- 
sheet  must  unquestionably  be  entered  juster  views 
of  the  organization  of  society  and  the  more  hopeful 
outlook  for  practical  social  benefits  which  results 
from  a  better  understanding  of  its  nature. 

The  intellectual  alliances  of  the  social  spirit  and 
its  influence  on  the  progress  of  opinion  show  a  simi- 
lar balance  of  loss  and  gain.  In  many  instances 
the  exponents  of  the  spirit  have  come  from  out  the 
ranks  of  the  radical  parties,  and  its  effects  have  been 
of  a  destructive  kind.  To  a  considerable  degree, 
in  fact,  there  is  reason  for  the  widely  disseminated 
conviction  that  the  doctrines  of  the  social  reform- 
ers, besides  being  subversive  in  themselves  of  many 
of  the  institutions  of  the  traditional  social  order, 
have  been  associated  with  reflective  tendencies 
which   make   for   the    rejection   of    the    accepted 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      199 

forms   of    political,    philosophical,    and    religious 
belief.1 

And  in  a  broader  way,  apart  from  the  influence 
of  individuals  or  of  schools  of  thought,  many  causes 
have  cooperated  to  foster  an  alliance  between  the 
social  movement  and  negative  reflection.  Rebellion 
against  the  existing  order  inevitably  brought  the 
recalcitrant  party  into  touch  with  those  who 
already  were  questioning  the  validity  of  the  prin- 
ciples on  which  society  rested.  Itself  traditional 
and  established,  the  old  regime,  as  argued  in  an 
earlier  portion  of  the  present  chapter,  depended  on 
time-honored  views  of  fundamental  truth.  By  the 
logic  of  his  convictions,  therefore,  as  well  as 
through  the  influence  of  the  sceptics,  the  advocate 
of  social  change  or  the  suffering  proletaire  was 
lured  into  the  adoption  of  radical  conclusions. 
This  tendency  of  thought,  moreover,  did  not  dis- 
appear with  the  excesses  of  the  Revolution,  nor 
has  it  been  confined  in  the  period  since  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century  to  the  active  participants  in 

1  The  Hegelian  leanings  of  several  of  the  leaders  of  the  earlier 
socialism  have  often  been  noted  (L.  Stein,  Die  Sociale  Frage  im 
Lichle  der  Philosophic,  pp.  501  ff. ;  F.  G.  Peabody,  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  Social  Question,  pp.  18-21)  ;  while  the  debt  of  sociology  to 
Comte,  the  founder  of  positivism,  is  even  more  familiar.  An  ex- 
treme statement  of  the  irreligious  and  materialistic  tendencies 
of  the  socialistic  and  communistic  parlies  is  given  by  Contzen, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  170  ff. 


200      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

the  outbreaks  which  from  time  to  time  have  dis- 
turbed the  age.     In  spite  of  the  changes  that  have 
taken  place  in  political  and  social  organization,  in 
spite  also  of  the  decline  of  philosophical  as  of  re- 
ligious faith,  later  modern  society  remains  a  devel- 
opment from  the  order  which  was  founded  upon 
the  older  conceptions,  if  not  a  complete  survival  of 
it.     Hence  it  is  natural  for  social   agitation   and 
negative  speculation   often   to    go   hand  in  hand. 
The  truth  of  Christian  doctrine  may  be  denied,  for 
instance,  but  the  organic  relation  of  the  historical 
forms  of  civilized  society  in  the  "West  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  Christian  ethics  is  beyond  dispute.     The 
extremist,  again,  may  aim  to  do  away  with  private 
property,    sometimes    even    in    his    madness,    to 
destroy  the  institution  of   the  family  or  all   civil 
authority,  but  before  these  results  can  be  accom- 
plished, he  must  succeed  in  rooting  out  of  the  mind 
of  civilized  man  not  simply  the  ideas  which  have 
controlled  his    thinking  for  fifteen   centuries  and 
more,  but   also  the  habits,  the   modes  of   action, 
which,  proceeding  from   these   fixed  beliefs,  have 
become  ingrained  elements  in  his  nature.     And  if 
the  members  of  the  Left,  when  they  address  them- 
selves  to   this   tremendous   task,    look   upon    the 
sceptical  theories  of  the  time  as  the  normal  com- 
plement of  their  own  special  convictions,  it  cannot 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      201 

be  denied  that  the  assumption  contains  a  large 
measure  of  truth ;  although  it  can  be  shown,  as  the 
present  writer  is  glad  to  believe  in  common  with 
many  earnest  thinkers,  that  moderate  efforts  at 
social  reform  are  out  of  harmony  neither  with 
sound  views  of  philosophy,  nor  with  the  sounder, 
perhaps  it  should  rather  be  said  with  the  older, 
interpretations  of  Christianity. 

It  has  further  not  escaped  remark  that  a  link  of 
connection  exists  between  the  negative  tone  of 
thought  concerning  social  questions  and  the  envi- 
ronment, physical,  intellectual,  and  moral,  amid 
which  these  modern  movements  have  had  their 
origin.  In  general  terms  it  is  often  said  that  the 
present  is  a  materialistic  age.  This  description 
has  reference  as  well  to  the  tendencies  toward 
practical  materialism  by  which  the  life  and  thought 
of  the  age  have  been  characterized  as  to  the  preva- 
lence at  certain  stages  of  the  era  of  materialistic 
theories  of  the  universe.  The  age  has  been  one  of 
unexampled  material  prosperity,  due  in  large  part 
to  the  'marvellous  advance  of  the  natural  sciences 
and  to  the  inventive  industry  which  has  been 
brought  into  play  to  utilize  the  discoveries  of 
science  for  practical  ends.  Thought  has  been 
centred  on  the  physical  world  because  it  is  here 
that  the  mind  has  gained  its  chief  successes.     Life 


202      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

and  life's  interests  have  been  altered  by  the  same  in- 
fluence, since  the  new  mastery  over  nature  has  at 
once  facilitated  the  satisfaction  of  man's  physical 
needs  and  enlarged  his  ideas  of  the  material  pos- 
sibilities of  his  existence.  The  partial  relief  from 
suffering  has  added  poignancy  to  the  misery  which 
remains,  and  created  a  longing  for  goods  which 
before  were  so  far  beyond  the  possibility  of  attain- 
ment that,  in  effect,  they  existed  beyond  the  poor 
man's  ken.  The  case  of  the  bourgeois,  moreover, 
is  similar  to  that  of  the  proletaire.  Substitute  in- 
creased prosperity  for  relief  from  suffering  and  the 
acquirement  of  the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  and  the 
argument  holds  for  the  citizen  of  the  middle  class 
as  well  as  for  the  member  of  the  mass.  Even  the 
rich  man,  it  is  claimed,  is  more  prone  than  ever  to 
value  his  wealth  in  terms  of  houses,  lands,  and 
creature  comforts,  rather  than  as  the  means  of 
living  a  more  intellectual,  refined,  and  elevated 
human  life. 

Has  the  world  become  less  spiritual,  then,  and 
must  new  Jeremiads  be  sung  over  the  bankruptcy 
of  civilization  in  this,  the  most  modern  age? 
Undoubtedly  the  case  is  urgent,  but  if  opportunity 
permitted,  reasons  might  be  given  for  moderating 
the  replies  which  are  often  made  to  such  queries  by 
the  advocates  of  conservative  views.     In  whatso- 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      203 

ever  sense,  however,  these  answers  may  fall  out,  it 
must  be  conceded  that  the  social  movements  of  the 
time  are  peculiarly  open  to  negative  or  materialistic 
suggestions  —  theory  here  as    elsewhere  affecting 
practical   conviction,    and,   more    significant   still, 
practice  giving  form  and  color  to  the  conclusions 
of  abstract  thought.     For  how  shall  the  just  de- 
mand for  daily  bread  fail  to  prepossess  the  mind 
in  favor  of  that  type  of  reflection  which  has  made 
more  practicable   the  satisfaction  of   the  need,  in 
favor  also  of  the  conclusions  concerning  fundamen- 
tal  problems   in   which    too   often   this   thought- 
movement  issues?     How   shall  the   stunted  city- 
dweller  who  craves  for  his  children  more  light, 
and  air,  and   food   than  he  himself  has   enjoyed, 
how  shall  this  man,  if  he  but  think  at  all,  refuse  to 
listen  to  those  who  urge  agnosticism,  or  materialism, 
or  anarchism,  as  alone  compatible  with  the  trend  of 
thought  which  has  brought  the  realization  of  his 
desires  more  nearly  within  his  reach  ?     How,  since 
the  need  is  physical,  shall  the  reformer  and  the 
philanthropist  avoid  the  temptation  to  consider  the 
material  rather  than  the  spiritual  dearth?     And 
how,  when  men  are  starving,  shall  we  persuade 
them  that  bread  is  not  all  they  lack  ?     So  reflection 
on  the  sore  points  of  the  social  organism  often  finds 
itself  in  harmony  with  the  forces  in  recent  thinking 


204      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

which  make  for  destructive  theories  of  the  world 
and  human  life.  It  is  a  well-known  tendency  of 
temporal  suffering  to  obscure  the  vision  of  the 
world  which  is  beyond.  This  impulse  is  now 
active  in  an  age  in  which  categorical  denials  of  all 
constructive  principles  are  common  and  the  fore- 
most intellectual  movement  of  the  time,  itself 
tolerant  of  negative  interpretations,  forms  the 
background  of  reform.  Hence  it  becomes  intelli- 
gible that  not  only  the  theories  of  the  misguided 
extremists,  but  even  the  conclusions  of  the  more 
moderate  social  philosophers,  often  include  an 
admixture  of  destructive  views. 

It  must  not  be  assumed,  however,  that  the 
affiliations  of  the  social  movement  have  been 
entirely  negative,  nor  is  its  influence  always  thrown 
in  favor  of  sceptical  conclusions.  On  the  contrary, 
it  has  contributed  as  few  other  tendencies  of  con- 
temporary thought  to  the  development  of  positive 
opinion.  To  it,  in  the  first  place,  we  owe  in  part 
an  addition  to  the  circle  of  the  sciences.  Sociology 
is  not  new,  indeed,  in  the  sense  that  the  matters  of 
which  it  treats  have  in  this  age  for  the  first  time 
been  brought  forward  as  subjects  of  discussion. 
For  the  nature  of  society  and  the  questions  concern- 
ing the  best  form  of  political  and  social  organiza- 
tion have  engaged  the  attention  of  thinkers  since 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS      205 

the  early  stages  of  rational  inquiry.  And  its  title 
to  be  considered  science,  at  least  in  its  present 
state,  is  open  to  challenge  as  well  because  of  the 
indefiniteness  of  its  field  and  its  continued  partial 
reliance  on  philosophical  or  semi-philosophical 
modes  of  inquiry,  as  because  of  the  uncertainty 
and  incompleteness  which  mar  its  results.  Never- 
theless, it  is  evident  that,  beginning  with  the  work 
of  Comte,  the  investigation  of  the  questions  of  the 
social  order  has  of  late  been  more  definitely  set 
apart  than  ever  before  under  a  distinct  intellec- 
tual discipline ;  that  determined  efforts  have  been 
put  forth  to  establish  the  science  of  society,  thus 
constituted,  upon  a  thoroughly  "positive"  basis; 
that  sociology,  clearly  understood,  or  conceived,  as 
it  unfortunately  is  by  many  minds,  in  a  loose  and 
general  fashion,  has  in  our  age  been  made  the  sub- 
ject of  eager,  often  anxious  consideration ;  and 
that  it  is  destined  to  engross  our  thinking  until  its 
problems  shall  have  in  some  degree  been  solved,  or 
satisfaction  been  found  for  the  practical  needs  by 
which  in  many  cases  these  problems  have  been 
suggested. 

No  less  remarkable  than  the  increase  of  interest 
in  social  questions  and  the  birth  of  the  new  science 
has  been  the  progressive  socialization  of  our  views 
concerning  society  itself.     Abstractly  considered,  it 


206      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IX   THOUGHT 

is  conceivable  that  reflection  on  sociological  questions 
might  have  favored  any  one  of  the  various  theories 
of  social  organization.  Nevertheless,  the  more 
attention  is  focussed  upon  social  problems,  the 
more  likely  is  it  that  conclusions  in  regard  to  the 
origin  and  the  nature  of  the  social  group  will  give 
prominence  to  the  organic  rather  than  the  atom- 
istic conception  of  society  ;  while,  under  the  con- 
ditions of  recent  thinking,  it  would  have  been 
surprising  if  any  other  result  had  ensued.  Hence, 
in  part,  the  change  from  the  errors  of  a  century  or 
two  centuries  ago  to  the  more  accurate  analysis  of 
the  present  time.  Then,  with  what  seems  to  us  a 
monstrous  misunderstanding  both  of  the  individual 
and  of  life  in  common,  it  was  possible  to  main- 
tain that  man  is  by  nature  an  entirely  self-centred 
being.  Oblivious  of  the  fact  that  certain  of  the 
higher  animals  possess  the  germs  of  the  social 
instinct,  political  theorists,  for  example,  held  that 
in  the  primitive  condition  of  humanity  the  selfish 
impulses  ruled  supreme,  the  beginnings  of  organi- 
zation coining  in  as  the  result  of  a  later  movement, 
founded  upon  a  compact.  Thus  the  state  was 
looked  upon  as  an  artificial  product,  devised  to 
serve  as  a  check  on  man's  egoistic  conduct,  in  order 
to  secure  for  each,  under  certain  limitations  of  his 
freedom,  the  safeguards  for  his  interests  which  the 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      207 

uncontrolled  exercise  of  the  impulses  of  all  had 
brought  into  jeopardy.  Happily  the  progress  of 
recent  thinking  has  made  such  views  as  these 
untenable.  For,  as  the  later  moderns  have  been 
compelled  to  learn  by  the  hard  way  of  escape  from 
established  error,  man  is  in  truth  a  social  being  — 
so  that  any  theory  of  his  extrinsic  or  artificial  so- 
cialization is  wrecked  at  once  by  the  more  exact 
understanding  of  his  nature  and  his  possibilities. 
He  does  not  need  to  be  made  social ;  as  man  he  is 
already  this,  at  very  least  in  a  potential  way.  The 
germs  of  sociability  are  in  him  from  the  start, 
however  much  they  may  be  overlaid  by  his  other 
and  selfish  instincts ;  while  the  process  implied  in 
his  advance  from  the  rudiments  of  political  and 
social  life  to  the  developed  forms  of  society  is 
natural  in  the  deepest  meaning  of  the  word. 

Besides  assisting  at  the  birth  of  the  science  spe- 
cifically devoted  to  its  interests,  the  sociological 
movement  has  influenced  other  members  of  the 
family  of  sciences.  This  is  notably  true  of  psy- 
chology. As  the  renewal  of  this  discipline  has  gone 
on  under  the  leading  of  the  physical  and  the  phys- 
iological sciences,  its  associations  in  recent  years 
have  been  with  the  investigations  of  the  laboratory 
rather  than  with  the  researches  of  the  student  of 
society.     In  fact,  it  has  often  been  feared  that  the 


208      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

new  psychology,  so  called,  would  prove  in  the  end 
to  be  merely  a  science  of  brain  and  nerve,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  mental  element  in  the  proper 
meaning  of  the  term.  This  anxiety,  moreover, 
has  been  furthered  by  the  connection  of  our  later 
psychological  studies  not  only  with  physics  and 
physiology,  but  also  with  biological  inquiries.  But 
biology  itself  has  proven  in  the  highest  degree  sen- 
sitive to  the  attractions  of  sociological  principles ; 
and  psychology  has  advanced  from  the  study  of 
the  individual  mind  to  the  investigation  of  the 
social  consciousness.  Toward  this,  it  has  found 
its  way  prepared  by  inquiries  undertaken  before 
the  present  devotion  to  social  questions  began. 
The  psychology  of  language,  whether  studied  under 
the  name  or  not,  the  history  and  interpretation  of 
institutions,  of  manners,  and  of  customs,  the  divi- 
sion of  psychology  itself  entitled  folk-psychology  1 
or  race-psychology,  all  antedated  social  psychology 
in  its  present  forms,  and  all  had  gathered  materials 
of  value  for  it  in  the  prosecution  of  its  work. 
Apart  also  from  the  sociological  impulse,  the  labors 
of  the  new  psychologists  have  often  been  of  a  kind 
ancillary  to  the  study  of  society.  The  very  recent 
researches  into  the  psychology  of  men  in  masses, 

1  Founded  by  Lazarus  and  Steinthal,  Zeitschrift  fib-  Volkerpsy- 
chologie  und  Sprachioissenschaft,  vol.  I.  (1860),  pp.  1-73. 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS     209 

as,  for  instance,  the  study  of  the  psychical  phe- 
nomena of  crowds  or  mobs,  form  a  case  in  point, 
the  laws  of  this  accidental  or  even  abnormal  group- 
ing being  fitted  to  throw  light  on  the  laws  of  the 
more  normal  and  more  stable  forms  of  collective 
association. 

The  principal  questions  of  social  psychology  may 
be  classified  under  two  heads  :  one  genetic,  the 
origin  of  the  social  consciousness  ;  the  other  ana- 
lytic, the  nature  of  the  social  consciousness,  its  func- 
tions and  its  laws.  The  first  of  these  divisions  is 
closely  related  to  genetic  psychology  at  large,  as  it 
concerns  itself  with  the  origin  of  the  individual  or 
the  development  of  the  race.  The  second  as  well 
as  the  first  may  be  studied  either  for  its  own  sake, 
in  order  to  throw  light  on  the  psychology  of  social 
organization,  or  for  ulterior  ends,  to  aid  in  the 
investigations  of  economics  and  politics,  to  clarify 
and  develop  the  principles  of  ethics,  to  further  the 
endeavors  of  religion  and  theology  in  face  of  the 
newer  problems  of  the  time. 

These  connections  of  social  psychology  give  to 
it  an  important  practical  bearing.  It  is  therefore 
the  more  necessary  to  remark  that  the  study  of 
the  social  consciousness  is  exposed  to  danger  from 
certain  fundamental  misconceptions.  These  gather 
about  the  phrase  itself,  so  that  they  may  be  said 


210      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

to  centre  in  the  error  which,  taken  literally,  it  may 
be  made  to  contain.  The  term  "  social  conscious- 
ness," or  "  social  mind,"  signifies  those  elements 
in  human  experience  which  arise  from  collective 
existence,  or,  more  narrowly,  the  conscious  recog- 
nition of  our  relations  to  other  men.1  In  either 
sense  it  denotes  a  function  of  the  individual  mind, 
developed  beyond  a  doubt  along  with  the  indi- 
vidual's consciousness  of  self,  and  both  coming  to 
the  birth  under  the  conditions  of  life  in  common. 
Further,  it  is  implied  that  this  phase  of  experience 
is  characteristic  not  merely  of  single  members  of 
the  social  group,  but  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  of 
all  the  various  units  of  which  the  group  is  com- 
posed. Once  more,  it  is  not  simply  an  experience 
of  the  primitive  distinction  between  the  individual 
and  his  fellows,  but  it  parallels,  alike  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  individual  and  in  the  evolution 
of  the  social  body,  the  more  complex  and  more 
highly  organized  forms  which  collective  existence 
progressively  assumes.  Thus  there  is  given  free 
scope  for  that  rapport  of  mind  with  mind  which, 
although  psychologists  have  begun  to  make  it  the 
subject  of  absorbing  investigation,  is  yet  but  im- 

1  Cf .  W.  Wundt,  Volkerpsychologie,  Bd.  I.,  Th.  1,  pp.  1-13 ;  J.  Mark 
Baldwin,  Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology,  sub  voce,  vol. 
II.,  p.  531. 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      211 

perfectly  understood ;  and  there  spring  up  those 
manifestations  of  mental  life,  crystallized  into 
institutions,  laws,  and  customs,  which  in  a  sense 
may  be  termed  conscious  and  objective  in  one. 
Just  here  the  danger  lies.  The  social  conscious- 
ness is  the  consciousness  of  individuals  grouped  in 
relations,  in  so  far  as  it  is  dependent  on  these  rela- 
tions, or  concerns  itself  with  them  or  with  the 
social  body  of  which  the  individuals  in  question 
constitute  the  elements.  The  temptation,  which 
is  increased  by  the  current  enthusiasm  for  social 
inquiries  and  the  prevailing  tendency  to  emphasize 
the  importance  of  social  phenomena,  is  to  raise 
this  function  of  minds  in  common  into  a  common 
mind,  to  ascribe  to  the  social  consciousness  as  it 
were  a  distinct  existence,  to  look  upon  it,  often 
without  realizing  the  significance  of  the  idea,  as 
forming  to  some  degree  a  consciousness  or  mind 
above,  and  added  to,  the  various  individual  minds 
with  the  recognition  of  which  the  argument  began. 
For  this  assumption  there  is  no  sufficient  evidence. 
It  yields  a  convenient  analogy,  as  the  biological 
view  of  society  under  the  figure  of  an  organism 
has  often  proved  a  useful  means  of  elucidating 
social  problems.1     But  like  the  latter,  it  is  not  to 

1  Cf.  Herbert  Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology,  part  II. ;  Leslie 
Stephen,  Science  of  Ethics,  chap.  I.,  §  IV.,  and  chap.  HI. 


212      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

be  interpreted  as  literal  fact ; 1  and  however  valu- 
able it  may  be  when  it  is  used  by  instructed  and 
careful  thinkers  —  and  even  by  such  the  danger 
is  not  always  escaped  —  it  is  liable  to  abuse  by 
the  many  who  nowadays  engage  in  sociological 
inquiries  without  adequate  preparation. 

There  is  a  similar  need  for  definition  in  regard 
to  the  bearing  of  recent  social  movements  upon 
ethics.  But  before  attention  is  directed  to  the 
somewhat  formal  task  of  analyzing  the  additions 
to  ethical  theory  that  have  been  suggested  by 
social  progress,  it  is  a  pleasant  duty  to  note  the 
general  quickening  of  ethical  interest  consequent 
upon  the  spread  of  the  social  spirit.  Often  it  is 
supposed  that  this  advance  consists  solely  in  the 
development  of  altruistic  feeling  on  the  part  of 
those  who  sympathize  with  the  sufferings  of  the 
downtrodden  classes  in  society.  But  the  causes 
of  the  gain,  and  the  sentiments  which  they  evoke, 
lie  deeper  even  than  the  spirit  of  beneficent  com- 
passion. For  it  is  evident  that  the  study  of 
society  at  large,  and,  in  particular,  the  study  of 
those  pressing  problems  which  in  this  age  most 
naturally  recur  to  mind  when  the  social  question 
is  mentioned,  alike  tend  toward  the  recognition 
of  the  interrelation  of  ethical  and  social  laws.     So 

1  At  very  least  not  in  its  entirety ;  see  Wundt,  op.  cit.,  p.  10. 


THOUGHT  AND  SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS     213 

it  has  come  about  that  not  only  the  moralist  and 
the  theologian  have  of  late  shown  a  remarkable 
appreciation  of  this  connection,  but  many  also  who 
approach  the  study  of  society  from  other  direc- 
tions, the  biologist,  the  economist,  the  political 
theorist,  and  the  sociologist  by  profession  —  since 
they  too  perceive,  on  the  one  hand,  that  moral 
conduct  is  a  chief  condition  of  social  welfare,  and 
on  the  other,  that  ethical  life  is  itself  conditioned 
by  social  forces.  Or,  as  the  two  contrasted  prin- 
ciples have  been  phrased  in  a  German  discussion 
of  the  subject,  the  social  question  an  ethical  ques- 
tion, and  the  ethical  question  a  social  question.1 
Even  the  consideration  of  social  needs  on  the  part 
of  those  who  know  the  ills  of  our  modern  society 
from  poignant  personal  experience  is  not  alwa}^s 
devoid  of  ethical  significance;  although,  as  too 
often  happens,  the  bitter  sense  of  personal  misery 
may  make  them  an  easy  prey  to  an  undiscriminat- 
ing  passion  for  relief.  For  the  discussion  of  claims, 
however  self-centred  it  may  be,  implies  some  con- 
sideration of  rights ;  and  denunciation  of  the  more 
fortunately  situated  members  of  society  is  idle 
unless  obligation  can  be  imputed,  so  that  amid  the 

1  Cf.  T.  Ziegler,  Die  sociale  Fraye  eine  sittliche  Frage,  and,  in 
reply,  F.  Staudinger,  "  Die  sittliche  Frage  eine  sociale  Frage," 
Philosophische  Monatschefte,  vol.  XXIX.,  pp.  30-53,  197-219. 


214      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

insistent  clamor  for  social  betterment  there  may 
be  heard  from  time  to  time  notes  of  sobriety  and 
justice  rising  above  the  cries  of  ignorant  rage. 

Moreover,  it  is  important  to  note  that  this  devel- 
opment of  ethical  interest  is  not  confined  to  mat- 
ters of  theory,  but  makes  its  way  into  the  sphere 
of  practice  also.  The  movement  merits  especial 
remark  as  it  affects  the  representatives  of  the 
sciences  not  directly  concerned  with  morals. 
These  are  often  seen  proving  their  faith  by 
their  works.  In  particular,  the  younger  men 
among  them  are  found  pressing  into  College 
Settlements,  People's  Palaces,  Toynbee  Halls, 
and  other  establishments  of  a  similar  kind, 
where  —  in  addition  to  the  efforts  that  are 
made  to  relieve  the  distressed  or  to  divert  their 
minds  from  the  hardships  of  their  lot  —  there 
are  taught  not  merely  the  laws  of  health  or 
the  conditions  of  success  in  life,  not  merely 
the  elements  of  national  history  and  the  princi- 
ples of  civil  liberty,  but  where  are  inculcated, 
also,  the  value  of  industry  and  thrift,  the  virtues 
of  temperance,  purity,  and  justice,  in  some  cases 
even  the  elements  of  religious  truth.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  the  pupils  in  these  insti- 
tutions, or  their  instructors,  can  always  point  out 
the   dividing-line   between   physiology  or   politics 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      215 

or  sociology,  and  ethics.  In  fact  the  question 
might  puzzle  wiser  heads  than  theirs.  Probably 
it  would  be  most  accurate  to  say  that  here,  as  at 
many  places  where  allied  sciences  reach  their  point 
of  contact,  the  sharp  delimitation  attempted  in  for- 
mer days  has  become  impossible.  For  theory  and 
practice  unite  to  show  the  traditional  separation 
of  these  departments  replaced  by  a  sense  of  their 
interconnection  and  partial  identity.  And  this 
is  great  gain,  gain  not  merely  in  the  clearness 
of  ethical  perception,  but  in  the  new  enthusiasm, 
the  moral  reinvigoration  which  accompanies  it.1 

In  the  sphere  of  ethics  proper,  the  influence 
of  social  progress  has  been  most  direct  and 
most  important  in  relation  to  a  particular  divi- 
sion of  the  moral  life.  This  is  often  called 
the  department  of  social  ethics;  but  the  term 
"social  ethics,"  like  its  fellow,  the  social  con- 
sciousness, is  one  that  requires  careful  expla- 
nation. Evidently,  as  it  is  employed  to-day,  it 
includes  more  than  the  class  of  moral  obligations 
which    formerly   were    discussed   under   the   head 

1  A  poasible  limitation  of  the  conclusions  expressed  in  this  and 
the  preceding  paragraph  is  to  be  found  in  the  contention  that  the 
sciences  in  question  properly  deal  with  "  what  is "  and  not  with 
"  what  ought  to  be,"  in  particular,  that  the  field  of  sociology  in- 
cludes the  facts  and  laws  of  social  life  and  no  more.  Cf.  Stucken- 
berg,  op.  cil.,  pp.  201-233. 


216      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

of  duties  to  other  men.  Nor  is  its  meaning  iden- 
tical with  that  of  altruism  or  altruistic  obliga- 
tion, terms  which  in  recent  discussions  have  often 
been  substituted  for  the  older  phrase.  For  these 
other-regarding  duties  had  been  recognized  long 
before  the  rise  of  modern  culture.  Kindness  and 
charity  were  commended  even  by  heathen  writers ; 
and  since  the  advent  of  Christianity  they  have 
formed  one  chiefest  element  in  the  moral  con- 
sciousness of  the  civilized  world,  or  if  at  any  time 
they  have  been  neglected,  it  has  been  because  the 
principles  of  the  Founder  of  the  Christian  Faith 
have  been  suffering  eclipse  in  the  minds  and  lives 
of  his  professed  followers.  Therefore,  however 
grateful  the  world  should  be  for  the  emphasis 
that  has  been  laid  ivpon  these  sacred  virtues  by 
the  social  movement  of  the  time,  in  principle  the 
new  ethic  cannot  be  analyzed  into  such  elements 
alone. 

Perhaps  the  best  clew  to  the  explanation  of  the 
matter  will  be  found  by  returning  to  the  analysis 
of  the  social  consciousness  which  was  attempted 
from  the  standpoint  of  psychology.  On  exami- 
nation, one  central  factor  in  this  proved  to  be  a 
highly  developed  sense  of  sociality,  or  in  the  terms 
which  have  been  employed  in  this  discussion,  a 
developed  consciousness  of  social  relations.     This, 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      217 

moreover,  (as  was  also  noted,)  acquires  so  much 
of  strength  and  definiteness  that  it  leads  to  the 
idea  of  the  solidarity  of  all  the  members  of  the 
social  group,  rising  at  times  to  a  conception  of 
society  as  itself  an  independent  conscious  unity. 
Hence  arises  the  belief  that  man,  who  is  recog- 
nized as  a  moral  personality  while  at  the  same 
time  he  forms  a  component  member  of  the  group, 
has  duties  not  merely  to  his  fellows  as  individuals, 
but  also  to  the  social  organism  of  which  he  is  a 
part,  and  in  the  advantages  of  which  he  willy- 
nilly  shares.  This  conclusion,  further,  combines 
with  the  political  impulses  of  the  time  to  yield 
the  emphasis  which  now  is  laid  upon  the  obliga- 
tions of  the  citizen.  It  is  incumbent  on  the  indi- 
vidual, so  we  have  come  to  believe,  to  take  his 
part  in  the  government  of  the  political  body 
within  whose  borders  his  lot  is  cast,  in  so  far 
as  the  right  of  participation  is  accorded  him  by 
fundamental  law.  In  his  town,  county,  or  state, 
in  his  commune,  his  electoral  circle,  his  parlia- 
mentary district,  or  his  shire,  it  is  his  duty,  as 
men  now  judge,  not  merely  to  exercise  his  rights 
as  a  private  member  of  the  body  politic,  but  so 
much  as  in  him  lies,  and  so  far  as  opportunity 
belongs  to  him,  to  see  to  it  that  just  laws  are 
framed,  that  established  laws  are   respected   and 


218      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

duly  executed,  that  public  officials  perform  their 
functions  in  an  honest  and  efficient  manner,  that 
the  standard  of  public  no  less  than  of  private 
life  is  kept  pure  and  true,  even  that,  in  regard 
to  external  and  foreign  relations,  the  principles 
of  honor  and  peace  are  observed  among  the 
nations. 

It  is  very  easy,  no  doubt,  to  sneer  at  such 
a  programme,  easy  in  the  spirit  of  reactionary 
officialdom  to  denounce  it  as  revolutionary,  or  at 
least  as  beyond  the  possibility  of  execution,  even 
when  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  peoples 
which  enjoy  the  freest  political  institutions.  The 
popular  demagogue  and  his  dangerous  arts,  the 
ignorance  of  your  would-be  village  Hampdens  — 
cries  like  these  will  furnish  convenient  cover  for 
attacks  on  the  political  virtue  of  the  multitude ; 
while  the  ill-success  of  the  citizens  in  securing 
purity  in  public  life,  say  in  the  matter  of  the  tariff 
and  the  trusts,  or  in  influencing  foreign  policy,  for 
instance  in  the  approval  of  arbitration  treaties, 
may  be  cited  to  give  point  to  an  otherwise  vapid 
jest.  Nevertheless,  his  will  be  an  idle  task  who 
shall  endeavor  to  disprove  the  increasing  impor- 
tance of  public  opinion  in  the  government  of 
modern  states,  as  it  is  also  undeniable,  and  this 
is  the  point  with  which  we  are  here  most  nearly 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS     219 

concerned,  that  there  is  developing  in  the  mod- 
ern mind  a  healthy  and  beneficent,  at  times  a 
highly  effective,  sense  of  civic  responsibility. 

The  heightened  sense  of  solidarity  does  not  ex- 
haust itself,   however,  in  the  production  of  new 
ethical  principles  relating  to  the  political  and  social 
order,  but  promotes  as  well  the  consciousness  of 
duties  to  other  men  in  their  social  relations.     Here 
the  social  impulse  is  met  halfway  by  an  apprecia- 
tion of   the   disorders  which  afflict  society.      So 
from  the  union  of  several  tendencies  it  results  that 
the  modern  mind  gains  a  sympathetic  perception 
of  the  needs  of  the  poor,  not  merely  as  individuals, 
but  as  they  are  gathered  into  groups  or  classes.     It 
is  not  the  chance  beggar  at  the  door  craving  a  pass- 
ing dole  that  men  think  of  now  when  they  ponder 
the  problems  of  benevolence,  nor  merely  the  belated 
wayfarer  beseeching  food  or  shelter.     The  thinker 
of  to-day  is  oppressed  rather  by  the   belief   that 
great  masses  of  his  fellow-beings  are  existing,  it 
it  can  hardly  be  termed  living,  on  a  plane  below 
the  level  of  normal  human  development ;  that  this 
miserable    state  of  affairs  is   due,  in  considerable 
measure  at  least,  to  the  fact  that  the  conditions  of 
their  existence  are  such  as  to  make  normal  life  im- 
possible ;  and,  finally,  that  these  conditions  again,  at 
least  in  part,  are  grounded  in  the  very  constitution 


220      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

of  modern  society.  Thus  we  are  affected  not  so 
much  by  the  contemplation  of  isolated  cases  of  suf- 
fering as  by  the  existence,  one  might  almost  say  the 
necessary  existence,  of  a  class  of  underbred,  under- 
fed, under-educated,  half-cared-for  beings,  whose  lot 
is  only  the  more  pitiable  because  the  progress  of 
society  has  taught  them  to  crave  the  humanizing 
elements  in  culture,  which,  together  with  the  ne- 
cessities of  physical  life,  the  conditions  of  their 
existence  deny  to  them. 

The  primary  significance,  therefore,  of  this  phase 
of  recent  ethical  development  consists  in  the  reali- 
zation of  duties  to  other  men  as  they  are  assembled 
in  groups  or  classes.  But  since  the  miseries  from 
which  the  classes  suffer  arise  from  causes  common 
in  the  several  cases  to  the  members  of  the  group, 
it  is  further  perceived  that  the  attack  on  social 
ills  must  be  conducted  along  the  lines  of  collective 
endeavor.  The  disease  springs  ultimately  from 
social  sources,  so  a  cure  is  to  be  expected  not  from 
individual  attempts  at  palliation,  but  from  organ- 
ized exertion  to  remove  the  causes  of  the  malady. 
Thus,  for  example,  instead  of  the  occasional 
charity  of  the  traditional  benevolence,  the  goal  of 
those  who  now  most  wisely  seek  to  improve  the 
condition  of  the  poor  is  found  in  the  charity  organi- 
zation, whose  task  it  is  to  canvass  the  entire  situa- 


THOUGHT  AND  SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS      221 

tion  in  a  town  or  city  or  district,  to  apportion  relief 
in  such  a  way  that  the  number  of  those  in  need  of 
assistance  may  be  diminished  to  the  greatest  possi- 
ble extent,  and  unceasingly  to  labor  to  eradicate  so 
far  as  may  be  possible  the  permanent  causes  of 
their  poverty.  So,  again,  where  formerly  it  was 
left  to  the  conscientious  physician,  or  even  to  the 
popular  lecturer,  to  inculcate  the  laws  of  hygiene 
or  to  endeavor  to  secure  their  observance,  the  care 
of  the  public  health  in  well-ordered  communities 
is  now  committed  to  regularly  appointed  officials, 
with  legal  authority  to  safeguard  the  physical  well- 
being  of  society. 

The  different  bodies  that  make  it  their  object  to 
accomplish  these  ends  assume  a  variety  of  forms. 
In  some  cases  they  are  simple  associations  of  the 
charitably  disposed  in  a  given  vicinity,  without 
regard  to  questions  of  creed  or  social  station.  In 
others,  the  group  may  be  a  band  of  religious  per- 
sons in  a  single  church  or  a  society  recruited  from 
all  the  churches,  as  our  ecclesiastical  organizations 
awaken  to  the  opportunity  for  carrying  on  a  work 
so  clearly  in  harmony  with  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity. Or  it  may  not  be  a  group  specifically 
organized  for  benevolent  purposes,  but  one  which 
existed  before  the  orig-m  of  recent  movements  for 

O 

social  reform  and  which  is  continued  apart  from 


222      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

them.     For  it  is   a  further  characteristic  feature 
of   the  ethical   consciousness  under  consideration, 
that  it  ascribes  these  newly  acknowledged  respon- 
sibilities to  forms  of  social  and  politicial  organiza- 
tion which  have  sprung  from  the  general  conditions 
of  social  life.     Hence,  to  the  duties  toward  groups 
or  classes  on  the  part  of  individuals  and  of  the 
corporate  bodies  called  into  being  for  the  satisfac- 
tion of  such  obligations,  there  is  added  the  recog- 
nition of  these  duties  as  incumbent  on  the  higher 
classes  of  society  in  relation  to  their  less  fortunate 
fellows,  or  even  on  the  representatives  of  the  civil 
government.     It  may  be  a  town  council,  or  board 
of  aldermen,  or  state  legislature,  or  parliamentary 
assembly,  which  takes    steps  in    the  direction  of 
social   betterment ;    being  moved,  in  a  large  pro- 
portion of  such  cases,  by  the   pressure  of  public 
opinion  to  enact  the  demands  of  the  more  enlight- 
ened portion  of  the  community  into  laws  aimed 
at  the  general  good.     A  considerable   element  in 
modern    society,   even,   and   one   which    includes 
among  its  members  besides  the  turbulent  foes  of 
all  social  order  not  a  few  thinkers  of  repute,  drives 
this  last  principle  to  an  extreme,  maintaining  that 
the  state  should  not  merely  exert  itself  for  the 
benefit   of   the  citizens  within  the   limits  of  the 
present  political  organization,  but  should  take  over 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      223 

the  ownership  and  the  management  of  the  means 
of  public  welfare. 

At  the  end  of  the  analysis,  therefore,  the  count- 
erpart is  reached  of  the  principle  which  was 
discussed  at  the  beginning.  The  social  movement, 
as  was  there  explained,  is  instrumental  in  the 
genesis  of  the  newer  realizations  of  civic  obliga- 
tion. Here  it  becomes  evident  that  the  same  force 
has  in  recent  experience  given  rise  to  fresh 
demands  upon  the  state,  and  to  an  enlarged 
interpretation  of  the  duties  devolving  upon  the 
body  politic.  Concerning  this  phase  of  the  matter 
there  exist,  no  doubt,  grave  differences  of  opinion. 
How  far  may  the  state,  how  far  should  the  state, 
increase  its  control  over  the  conditions  of  individ- 
ual and  social  welfare?  In  how  far  may  it,  or 
should  it,  assume  the  regulation  of  personal  life, 
the  management  of  trade  and  manufacture,  the 
control  of  the  means  of  communication  and  of 
the  instruments  of  public  convenience  and  public 
comfort?  To  what  extent  may  it,  or  should  it, 
alter  the  established  laws  in  regard  to  the  posses- 
sion, the  enjoyment,  and  the  transmission  of 
property  ?  These  are  questions  which  are  vari- 
ously answered  by  experts,  and  which  the  present 
writer  claims  no  special  authority  to  discuss.  It  is 
probable  that  not  more  than  a  minority  of  educated 


224      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

men  would  so  view  them  as  to  accept  the 
principles  of  the  extreme  collectivists,  expecting 
the  advent  of  the  social  millennium  from  the 
abolition  of  private  ownership.  Short  of  this 
extreme,  however,  there  is  a  numerous  class  whose 
members  take  up  a  favorable  attitude  toward 
efforts  on  the  part  of  the  political  body  to  amelio- 
rate the  conditions  of  social  life,  and  are  disposed 
to  acquiesce  in  the  assumption  by  the  civil  govern- 
ment of  larger  powers  than  it  now  exercises,  since 
they  believe  that  such  an  extension  of  its  functions 
is  necessary  in  order  to  the  execution  of  the  needed 
reforms.  This  phase  of  thought  represents  a  dis- 
tinct tendency  of  contemporary  opinion.  There  is 
happily  a  strong  repugnance  in  the  minds  of  the 
majority  to  the  doctrines  of  those  who  make  it 
their  avowed  aim,  without  the  use  of  force  or  with 
it,  to  compass  the  overthrow  of  the  existing  social 
order.  But,  at  the  same  time,  there  exists  a 
widely  disseminated  conviction  that  much  is  needed 
to  be  done  in  the  way  of  social  improvement 
which  the  state  alone  can  accomplish,  and  that, 
in  order  to  the  doing  of  it,  it  is  incumbent  upon 
the  state  to  go  beyond  the  present  limitations  of 
its  powers.  In  this  way  the  socialization  of  ethics 
culminates  in  a  new  view  of  the  functions  of  the 
state.     Duties  to  classes  by  classes  or  organizations 


THOUGHT  AND  SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS     225 

issue  in  duties  to  classes  or  to  the  whole  social 
group  on  the  part  of  the  corporate  representatives 
of  society. 

There  is  ground  for  hesitation  in  approaching 
the  relation  of  the  social  movement  to  religion  and 
theology.  For  although  the  subject  is  one  of 
manifest  importance,  the  discussion  is  embarrassed 
by  the  mass  of  errant  opinion  which  too  often 
gathers  round  it.  Sometimes  it  is  maintained  that 
religion,  taken  in  its  social  applications,  is  of  itself 
sufficient  to  heal  the  wounds  under  which  society 
suffers,  no  heed  being  given  to  the  influence  of 
economic,  political,  and  other  non-moral  forces  on 
the  conditions  of  social  welfare.  Sometimes,  with 
the  impetuosity  of  imperfect  information,  author- 
ized representatives  of  the  Christian  Faith  contend 
that  social  progress  and  the  religion  of  Christ  so 
exactly  correspond  that  the  church  must  be  trans- 
formed into  an  institution  devoted  exclusively  to 
the  promotion  of  social  ends.  To  avoid  vagaries 
of  this  kind  requires  knowledge  and  careful  think- 
ing, knowledge  greater  and  more  exact,  thought 
more  deliberate  and  circumspect,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
than  are  given  to  the  subject  by  many  impassioned 
orators  who  fill  the  air  with  the  proclamation  of 
their  religious  panaceas  for  the  social  maladies  of 
the  time. 


226      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

And  yet  the  socialization  of  religion  does  form 
an  important  topic  for  consideration.  To  begin 
with,  it  is  an  evident  part  of  the  progress  of  the 
age.  In  the  last  analysis,  it  is  true,  religion  is 
an  individual  and  personal  matter.  This  is  a 
principle  which  finds  its  witness  both  in  the 
psychology  of  the  personal  life  and  in  the  history 
of  religion  itself,  those  forms  of  belief  proving  most 
effective  which  make  their  appeal  most  directly 
to  the  heart  and  conscience.  In  this  particular  our 
Puritan  ancestors  undoubtedly  had  the  better  of 
the  argument,  whether  we  are  prepared  or  not  to 
accept  all  the  bristling  points  of  doctrine  with  which 
their  systems  abounded,  or  to  observe  all  the  rules 
of  conduct  which  they  held  incumbent  on  the 
Christian  man.  But  religion  has  relations  also 
which  go  beyond  the  circumference  of  the  individ- 
ual life.  This  is  the  great  truth  which  the  social 
movement  of  the  age  is  bringing  into  the  focus  of 
religious  thought,  not  merely  for  the  criticism  of 
religion  and  its  amendment,  but  as  a  means  to 
its  progress  and  further  conquests.  In  the  noble 
phrase  of  Canon  Fremantle,  written  now  twenty 
years  ago,  "  Religion  is  in  its  own  nature  most 
sociable";1  and  as  a  realization  of  the  fact  makes 

1  W.  H.  Fremantle  (now  Dean  of  Ripon),  The  World  as  the 
Subject  of  Redemption,  p.  256. 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      227 

its  way  more  and  more  into  the  religious  life  of 
the  time,  there  is  a  noticeable  gain  in  several 
different  directions. 

As  a  result,  religion,  on  the  one  hand,  is  able  to 
fulfil  its  mission  better  in  relation  to  the  condi- 
tions under  which  the  men  of  to-day  are  living. 
Creeds  may  differ,  not  only  in  their  minutice,  but 
also  in  the  essential  articles  of  faith,  though  the 
cry  that  doctrine  is  of  no  importance  for  life  only 
voices,  for  the  most  part,  the  world's  despair  be- 
cause it  finds  itself  perplexed  to  decide  which, 
if  any,  doctrines  to  believe.  But  all  the  sects 
agree  in  this,  that  it  is  a  paramount  obligation 
of  religious  men  to  promote  the  things  which 
make  for  purity  and  temperance  and  righteousness 
and  justice  and  peace ;  to  bind  up  the  broken- 
hearted, to  give  liberty  to  the  captive,  to  open  the 
eyes  of  them  that  are  blind.  And  the  social  move- 
ment brings  at  once  a  motive  and  an  opportunity 
for  performing  these  duties  on  a  scale  greater  than 
in  the  past,  and  in  ways  more  in  harmony  with  the 
spirit  of  the  time.  Hence  arises  a  second  advan- 
tage for  religion  at  the  present  juncture.  By  its 
attention  to  social  questions  it  is  brought  into 
closer  touch  with  the  moving  forces  in  modern 
life ;  and  since  there  is  no  apologetic  so  effective 
as  the  evidence  of  experience,  the  resultant  benefit 


228      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

to  the  cause  of  belief  is  of  a  most  valuable  kind. 
For  when  religion  adopts  the  well-being  of  society 
as  among  its  own  concerns,  while  at  the  same 
time  it  extends  a  relieving  hand  to  the  many  who 
are  alienated  by  their  sufferings  from  faith  in  God 
as  well  as  from  confidence  in  the  sentiments  of  his 
professed  worshippers,  it  secures  a  new  hold  upon 
the  mind  of  the  world.  Long  it  has  been  com- 
plained by  the  parties  to  the  great  debate  that 
there  is  a  breach  between  religion  and  culture. 
Here  is  suggested  a  means  of  overcoming  the  alien- 
ation, or  at  least  of  taking  useful  steps  toward  that 
end.  In  the  revival  of  religious  feeling  and  the 
renaissance  of  faith  which  have  of  late  begun 
to  manifest  themselves  in  the  English-speaking 
countries  —  less  markedly,  perhaps,  in  Continental 
Europe  —  this  reciprocal  approach  of  religion  and 
society  has  played  an  important  part.  And  in  so 
far  as  the  churches  shall  rise  to  the  measure  of 
their  opportunities,  it  is  also  reasonable  to  expect 
an  increased  constructive  influence  from  the  move- 
ment in  the  happier  era  which  we  hope  may  soon 
succeed  the  doubt  and  darkness  of  recent  years.1 

In  the  accomplishment  of  this,  its  newer  work, 
however,  religion  will  not  be  called  upon  to  aban- 
don  the   sphere   assigned   to   it   by  time-honored 
1  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  116  ff. 


THOUGHT  AND  SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS      229 

usage.  On  the  contrary,  its  great  objects  will  be 
the  more  successfully  attained,  the  more  strictly, 
with  the  soberness  and  caution  which  always  be- 
fit them,  its  representatives  refrain  from  the 
vagaries  of  the  enthusiast,  refusing  to  divert  their 
energies  to  labors  which  lie  outside  their  proper 
field.  What  is  needed,  is  not  so  much  a  trans- 
formation of  the  church  as  an  enlargement  of  its 
sympathies.  Religion  is  not  to  be  resolved  into 
social  feeling,  it  is  to  look  upon  the  interests  of 
society  as  its  own,  and  to  apply  its  sacred  prin- 
ciples to  them  with  all  possible  earnestness  and 
power.  The  minister  of  religion  will  do  well  not 
to  assume  the  functions  of  the  economist,  the 
political  theorist,  the  statesman,  the  educator,  or 
the  professional  social  reformer,1  but  to  labor  that 
the  newer  forms  of  human  endeavor  may  also  be 
considered  matters  of  duty,  that  the  new  ideals 
may  be  sanctified  by  the  infusion  of  the  reli- 
gious spirit,  that  religious  men  may  be  quick  to 
hearken  to  the  claims  of  social  obligation.  Up  to 
the  limit  of  his  strength,  and  wherever  it  is  possible 
for  him  to  participate  in  secular  affairs  without 
compromising  his  religious  standing,  he  will  do 
well  to  bring  religion  to  bear  upon  matters  of  pub- 
lic moment,  to  sympathize  with  suffering  on  the 

1  Cf .  F.  G.  Peabody,  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question,  pp.  35-36. 


230      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

part  of  classes  and  communities  as  he  long  has 
done  with  the  miseries  of  the  individual,  to  seek  to 
assuage  social  distress,  to  study  to  uplift  the  down- 
trodden and  the  fallen  classes  in  society,  to  strive 
to  check  all  forms  of  social  oppression  and  wrong. 
This  is  not  socialism.  It  is  not  even  that  vague 
and  curious  growth  which  sometimes  masquerades 
under  the  title,  "  Social  Christianity."  It  is  simply 
religious  principle  and  religious  practice  developed 
in  harmony  with  the  progress  of  the  age.1 

But,  the  question  will  be  raised,  How  does  this 
programme  agree  with  the  principles  of  the  Chris- 
tian Faith  ?  Granting  that  so  modest  a  participa- 
tion in  the  social  movement  is  proper  for  religion  at 
large,  it  will  still  be  asked,  Is  it  in  accord  with  the 
tenets  of  that  religion  which  in  its  several  forms 
is  the  dominant  faith  of  the  civilized  world  ?  To 
this  query  various  answers  will  be  given  by  the 
adherents  of  the  different  schools.  Some,  with 
a  certain  indefiniteness  of  thought  which  appears 
to  be  characteristic  of  the  enthusiastic  reformers 
of  society,  will   urge   that   Christianity  is   in   its 

1  In  order  to  guard  against  misunderstanding,  it  should  per- 
haps be  added  that  there  is  no  intention  to  ignore  the  large  amount 
of  valuable  work  of  the  kind  demanded  in  the  text  that  has  already 
been  accomplished  within  the  bounds  of  the  existing  religious  or- 
ganizations ;  but  rather,  with  grateful  recognition  of  what  has  been 
effected,  to  urge  its  further  development. 


THOUGHT  AND  SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS      231 

essence  a  means  to  social  progress;  summarizing 
their  conclusions  at  times  in  a  phrase  which  to 
them  seems  evident  truth,  but  which  to  the  mind 
of  others  verges  hard  on  irreverence,  "  Christ  the 
first  socialist."  In  the  opinion  of  the  writer,  how- 
ever, this  position,  to  which  moreover  reference  has 
alread}^  been  made,1  demands  but  little  attention. 
For  it  lacks  a  sound  exegetical  basis,  and  it  is 
unsupported  by  history;  while  it  adds  to  an  im- 
perfect acquaintance  with  the  canons  of  Biblical 
interpretation  a  confusion  in  thinking  which  serves 
to  render  the  reasonings  of  its  advocates  of  more 
than  doubtful  validity.  A  party  opposed  to  the 
former,  and  one  whose  views  are  more  worthy  of 
consideration,  will  challenge  any  alteration  of  re- 
ligious methods  in  the  direction  of  increased  social 
activity  as  a  departure  from  the  teachings  and 
example  of  our  Lord.  His  method,  it  may  forcibly 
be  urged,  emphasized  the  salvation  of  individuals 
rather  than  the  reformation  of  classes ;  or,  to  put 
it  more  accurately,  he  centred  his  labors  and 
those  of  his  disciples  upon  the  redemption  of  the 
individual,  leaving  the  redemption  of  the  com- 
munity to  follow  from  the  regeneration  of  its 
members.  Now,  beyond  all  question,  this  is  a 
more  accurate  view  of  Christ's  ministry  than  the 

1  p.  225,  above. 


232      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

one  which  has  just  been  dismissed.  In  regard  to 
it,  I  can  only  repeat  with  reverence  that  which  has 
already  been  remarked  in  relation  to  the  general 
question  of  individual  and  social  religion.1  Like 
scientific  analysis  and  historical  experience,  so  the 
example  of  the  Master  points  to  the  permanent 
significance  of  personality  in  the  matter  of  the  reli- 
gious life.  His  aim  was  to  enlighten  the  conscience, 
to  purify  the  heart,  to  redeem  the  life.  He  allied 
himself  with  no  political  party;  he  announced  no 
set  of  social  maxims ;  he  considered  no  questions 
and  advanced  no  conclusions  in  regard  to  tenden- 
cies of  thought  and  life  so  foreign  to  the  move- 
ments of  his  time  that  they  have  come  into  the 
focus  of  discussion  only  through  the  later  develop- 
ments of  modern  culture. 

Nevertheless,  it  would  be  idle  to  overlook  the 
elements  of  social  teaching  present  in  the  gospels. 
For  although  our  Lord  emphasized  so  distinctly 
the  necessity  of  personal  regeneration,  it  is  evident 
from  many  features  in  his  doctrine  and  his  minis- 
try that  he  recognized  also  the  reality  of  social 
relations ; 2  while,  in  addition  to  the  redemption  of 
individuals,  he  set  before  his  followers  the  ideal  of 

1  p.  226,  above. 

2  As  Professor  Shailer  Mathews  has  shown  in  his  admirable 
treatise,  The  Social  Teaching  of  Jesus. 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL  MOVEMENTS      233 

a  regenerate  society.  In  this  direction  point  not 
only  his  serene  participation  in  the  joys  of  social 
life,  to  the  standing  confusion  of  the  precisian  and 
the  ascetic,  not  only  his  insistence  on  the  sanctity 
of  the  family,  his  active  compassion  for  the  down- 
trodden and  the  suffering,  his  belief  in  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  but,  above  all,  his  conception  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  as  the  goal  of  Christian  progress. 
Toward  this  kingdom  the  Disciples  were  to  aspire ; 
for  its  coining  they  were  enjoined  to  labor  and  to 
pray ;  in  distinction  to  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth, 
its  nature  was  to  be  spiritual  and  eternal,  but  it 
was  also  to  be  an  organic  body,  under  the  headship 
of  God  manifested  in  his  Son  ;  and  it  was  destined 
in  its  extension  to  cover  all  the  earth.1 

Moreover,  these  features  of  Christ's  teaching  had 
been  foreshadowed  by  the  work  of  his  forerunners, 
if  indeed  it  may  not  be  said  that  certain  phases  of 
social  religion  come  out  more  clearly  in  the  best 
moments  of  the  history  of  Israel  than  they  do  in 
the  gospel  .story.  For,  in  addition  to  the  theocratic 
organization  of  the  nation  and  the  sense  of  soli- 
darity which  came  to  the  chosen  people  from  their 
relation  to  Jehovah,  it  is  noticeable  that  the  Pro- 
phetical Scriptures,  as  many  writers  of  late  have 
shown,  are  pervaded   by  social  ideals  of  a  noble 

1  Cf.  Mathews,  op.  cit.,  chap.  III. 


234      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

type.1  Thus  the  institutions  of  the  national  faith 
and  the  preaching  of  social  righteousness  alike 
encouraged  escape  from  the  one-sided  individualism 
which  has  too  often  prevailed  in  modern  religious 
thinking,  as  in  other  departments  of  modern  cul- 
ture. Or,  to  return  from  the  Old  Covenant  to  the 
history  of  the  New,  there  was  a  manifest  devel- 
opment of  analogous  principles  in  the  Apostolic 
church.  In  the  work  and  the  writings  of  the 
Apostle  Paul,  for  instance,  it  is  impossible  to 
ignore  the  social  factor.  Was  there  ever  a  man 
more  insistent  than  Paul  upon  the  salvation  of 
the  individual  ?  And  yet,  how  clear  vision  he 
gained  of  a  general  redemption  as  he  rose  above 
the  limitations  of  Judaism  to  his  conception  of 
Christianity  as  the  universal  faith.  As  before 
Israel  had  been  the  subject  of  divine  favor,  so 
now  unto  the  Gentiles  also  was  grace  given  that 
they  might  become  God's  children,  and  might  con- 
stitute part  of  the  one  body  of  Christ.2  Not  only 
were  souls  to  be  redeemed,  but  also  the  age,  until 
the  present  evil  world  should  be  replaced  by  one  in 
which  righteousness  should  prevail  at  the  coming 
of  the  Lord.   The  ideal  of  the  heavenly  inheritance 

1  Cf.  George  Adam  Smith,  Modern  Criticism  and  the  Preaching 
of  the  Old  Testament,  Lect.  VII.,  The  Book  of  Isaiah,  vol.  I.,  pp. 
14,  40  ff. ;  Fremantle,  op.  cit.,  Lept.  II. 

2  1  Corinthians  xii.  12-31 ;  Ephesians  ii.  11-22,  iv.  1-16. 


THOUGHT  AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      235 

is  citizenship  in  a  celestial  commonwealth,  wherein 
the  believer  has  birthright  share,  even  as  the  apos- 
tle himself  was  Roman  born  and  knew  by  experi- 
ence the  benefits  of  citizenship  in  the  earthly 
empire.1  In  fine,  throughout  the  Scriptures,  Old 
Testament  and  New,  there  runs  a  note  of  solidarity 
which  demands  as  real  recognition  and  considera- 
tion as  the  emphatic  insistence  on  individual  sin 
and  need.  In  this  way  the  present  age  is  being 
helped  by  the  movement  of  secular  thinking  to  a 
better  understanding  of  some  of  the  deeper  things 
of  our  religion.  With  the  Prophets,  with  the  Master, 
with  Paul,  with  John,  with  Augustine,  and  with 
many  of  the  profounder  minds  through  the  later 
Christian  centuries,  we  are  learning  to  appreciate 
the  organic  and  the  common,  as  well  as  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  personal  elements  in  the  Faith. 

Finally,  in  regard  to  whatever  of  social  devel- 
opment may  fall  outside  these  boundaries,  it  will 
be  important  to  adopt  a  broad,  even  an  expansive, 
view  of  Christianity  rather  than  to  cherish  a  nar- 
row or  mechanical  interpretation  of  it.  It  may 
very  well  be  that  many  of  the  questions  of  modern 
society,  and  many  of  the  principles  essential  to  the 
treatment  of  them,  are  not  alluded  to  in  any  part 
of  the  Bible.     Nay,  for  one,  the  writer  would  be 

1  Philippians  iii.  20  (cf.  Galatians  iv.  25-26)  ;  Acts  xxii.  25-29. 


236      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

as  earnest  in  resisting  attempts  to  read  into  the 
Scriptures  all  the  round  of  current  social  doctrine 
as  in  deprecating  the  view  which  looks  upon  them 
as  concerned  solely  with  the  religion  of  individual 
men.  But  there  were  two  forms  of  preparation 
common  to  the  religion  of  Israel  and  to  Chris- 
tianity for  the  phases  of  thought  and  life  to  which 
this  chapter  has  been  devoted.  One  of  these  has 
just  been  noted,  the  elements  of  solidarity  and 
sociality  which,  though  they  manifested  themselves 
in  varying  degrees  at  various  stages  of  Revelation, 
are  characteristic  of  it  as  a  whole.  The  second  is 
broader  than  the  first,  but  less  direct,  in  spite  of  its 
universal  application.  It  is  best  summed  up  in  the 
words  of  Paul  to  the  church  at  Philippi,  "  What- 
soever things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  hon- 
est, whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things 
are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report  "  — 
these  things  are  in  the  highest  sense  Christian,  for 
they  breathe  the  very  spirit  of  the  gospel.  In  so 
far  as  the  progress  of  the  world  increases  the  num- 
ber and  enlarges  the  scope  of  the  things  to  which 
this  spirit  may  be  applied,  it  is  not  only  the  privi- 
lege, but,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  bounden  duty  of 
Christian  men  to  bring  them  within  the  circle  of 
their  earnest  interest.  This  duty  again  has  itself 
a  twofold  aspect.     It  is  at  once  evangelistic  and 


THOUGHT   AND   SOCIAL   MOVEMENTS      237 

apologetic.  Such  possibilities  of  extending  the 
range  of  religious  activity  mean,  on  the  one  hand, 
an  open  door  for  fresh  usefulness  in  service,  they 
imply  a  new  and  richer  opportunity  for  hastening 
the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  But 
they  also  bring  an  apologetic  responsibility.  For 
if  Christianity  with  the  lengthening  centuries  shall 
prove  adapted,  as  it  has  in  the  past,  to  the  growing 
needs  of  the  world,  new  evidence  of  its  truth  will 
be  created  by  the  mere  fact  of  this,  its  plastic 
sufficiency.  But  if  considerable  areas  of  human 
life  shall  be  found  foreign  to  its  principles  and 
impervious  to  its  influence,  then  —  though  with 
reverence  be  it  said  —  its  truth  will  be  exposed 
to  new  and  grave  attack,  for  it  will  have  shown 
itself  of  less  than  universal  application.  Therefore 
Christian  men  and  the  Christian  church  should 
shrink  from  the  peril  of  bringing  discredit  on  the 
Faith  by  a  timorous  literalism,  which,  forgetting 
the  example  of  the  Master  and  his  early  followers, 
hesitates  to  live  in  the  light  of  open  day,  to  bring 
religion  into  touch  with  the  needs  and  the  move- 
ments  of  the  times.  Sympathy  for  their  fellow-men 
and  regard  for  Christian  truth  alike  demand  that 
they  play  well  their  part  by  facing  with  resolution 
the  problems  thrust  upon  them  by  the  circum- 
stances of  their  own  social  life. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  APPEAL  TO   FAITH 

"  In  periods  which  have  given  birth  to  a  sceptical 
philosophy,  one  never  looks  in  vain  for  the  com- 
plementary phenomenon  of  mysticism.  The  stone 
which  is  offered  by  doubt  in  place  of  bread  is  in- 
capable of  satisfying  the  impulse  after  knowledge, 
and  when  the  intellect  grows  weary  and  despairing 
the  heart  starts  out  on  the  quest  for  truth.  Then 
its  path  leads  inward,  the  mind  turns  in  upon 
itself,  seeks  to  learn  the  truth  by  inner  experience 
and  life,  by  inward  feeling  and  possession,  and 
waits  in  quietude  for  the  divine  illumination." 

So  a  writer  who  has  been  often  quoted  in  this 
essay  introduces  his  discussion  of  the  mystical 
movements  which  in  Germany  characterized  the 
era  of  transition  from  mediaeval  to  modern  times.1 
The  application  of  Professor  Falckenberg's  conclu- 
sions, however,  cannot  be  limited  to  this  particu- 
lar epoch,  nor  to  the  special  type  of  thought 
which  he  had  in  mind.  Not  only  in  the  age  of 
the  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance,  but  in  all 

1  Falckenberg,  op.  cit.,  p.  51. 
238 


THE  APPEAL   TO  FAITH  239 

epochs  of  transitional  culture,  there  are  conditions 
present  which  favor  the  appeal  to  faith.  Not  only 
do  the  pure  mystics,  in  the  full  meaning  of  that 
much-abused  term,1  take  refuge  from  the  difficul- 
ties of  reasoned  thinking  in  the  recourse  to  faith 
and  feeling,  but  inquirers  of  varied  types,  who  in 
eras  of  doubt  appreciate  the  value  of  ideal  con- 
viction, as  they  feel  its  need,  but  who  are  unable 
to  discover  tenable  grounds  of  belief  through  the 
unaided  exercise  of  the  pure  theoretical  reason. 

The  prevalence  of  this  tendency  in  the  classical 
eras  of  transition  has  been  illustrated  by  examples 
cited  in  the  early  part  of  the  present  inquiry.2  In 
very  recent  years  the  subject  has  been  brought  to 
the  attention,  first  of  the  English-speaking  world, 
and  later  of  thinkers  in  other  lands,  by  the  argu- 
ments of  a  distinguished  American  scholar,  whose 
views  in  regard  to  any  question  of  philosophy  or 
psychology  command  and  deserve  respect.  More 
important  even  than  the  specific  content  of  the 
conclusions  drawn  by  Professor  James  in  TJie  Will 
to  Believe 3  were  the  spirit  which  inspired  them  and 

1  For  a  discriminating  short  account  of  mysticism  see  A.  Seth, 
sub  voce,  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  9th  ed.,  vol.  XVII.,  pp.  128  ff. ; 
compare  with  this,  however,  W.  R.  Inge,  Christian  Mysticism,  Lec- 
ture I.,  and  Appendix  A,  pp.  335-348. 

2  Chap.  I.,  pp.  35  ff. 

8  William  James,  The  Will  to  Believe,  and  other  Essays  in  Popu- 
lar Philosophy,  1897. 


240      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

the  method,  or  as  his  opponents  might  put  it,  the 
absence  of  method,  by  which  they  were  reached. 
Born  of  the  age's  conflict  with  its  doubt  as  this 
had  been  reproduced  in  the  reflection  of  one  of  its 
eminent  thinkers,  the  thesis  argued  amounted  to  a 
defence  of  the  fundamental  articles  of  moral  and 
theistic  belief  on  the  basis  of  ideal  conviction,  it 
being  premised  that  the  doctrines  in  question  are  in- 
capable of  proof  or  disproof  on  purely  intellectual 
grounds,  and  the  entire  argument  being  projected 
on  the  background  of  an  empirical  philosophy  of 
knowledge.1 

Professor  James  was  happy,  moreover,  in  the  time 
at  which  his  Essays  were  published  in  permanent 
form.  Already  the  thought  of  the  age  had  passed 
from  the  stage  of  confident  destructive  activity  to 
the  weariness  of  moral  and  even  theoretical  ne- 
gation, which  indicates  the  beginning  of  reaction 
toward  more  positive  views  of  truth.  In  particu- 
lar, a  series  of  notable  works  conceived  in  a 
spirit  like  to  that  which  animates  the  author  of 
Hie  Will  to  Believe,  if  not  in  every  case  from  the 
same  point  of  view,  had  in  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States  awakened  new  hope  concerning 
the  fundamental  elements  of  spiritual  belief.  In 
a  brilliant  if  somewhat  superficial  book,  Mr.  Ben- 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  11-19 ;  and  the  whole  of  the  opening  Essay. 


THE   APPEAL   TO  FAITH  241 

jamin  Kidd  had  argued  that  the  evolutionary  pro- 
cess in  its  social  manifestations  is  dependent  upon 
<■'  an  ultra-rational  sanction."  x  Mr.  Balfour  had 
signalized  his  leisure  from  the  cares  of  state  by 
adding  to  his  much-misunderstood  Defence  of 
Philosophic  Doubt2  a  second  treatise,  The  Founda- 
tions of  Belief,3  in  which,  with  an  echo  alike  of 
Hume's  scepticism  and  of  Bishop  Butler's  analogical 
method,  he  maintains  that  the  necessary  impli- 
cations of  natural  science  have  their  parallel  in 
postulates  that  serve  to  support  the  truths  of 
aesthetical,  ethical,  and  religious  life.  Mr.  Ro- 
manes, the  "Physicus"  of  the  Candid  Examination 
of  TJieism,  published  in  1878,  had  left  at  his  death 
in  1894  his  notes4  for  a  defence  of  faith  as  the 
instrument  not  merely  of  ideal  conviction  in 
general,  but  of  full  catholic  orthodoxy.  And  it 
may  be  added  that  the  same  change  in  the  tone 
of  contemporary  thought  has  been  shown  by  the 
progress  of  opinion  since  Professor  James's  work 
appeared.  The  Gilford  Lectures5  of  Dr.  James 
Ward,  although  the  subject  is  approached  by 
theoretical  argument  rather  than  by  way  of  the 

1  Social  Evolution,  1894,  new  ed.,  1898. 

2  1879.  8  1895;  8th  (revised)  edition,  1901. 

4  Thoughts  on  Religion,  edited  by  C.  Gore.     Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp. 
81-82. 

5  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  1899. 


242      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

appeal  to  faith ;  the  later  essays  in  the  series !  by 
John  Fiske,  written  from  the  standpoint  of  evolu- 
tion and  ending  with  the  lecture  on  "  Life  Ever- 
lasting," posthumously  published ;  James's  own 
later  treatise,  TJie  Varieties  of  Religious  Uxjjerience,2 
with  its  wealth  of  psychological  data  and  its  broad 
conclusions  concerning  the  reality  and  the  impli- 
cations of  religious  phenomena  —  these,  to  name 
but  a  few  of  the  many  works  which  might  be 
cited,  have  given  further  token  that  the  agnostic 
movement  has  passed  its  time  of  culmination. 

The  "faith-philosophy"  then  is  not  singular 
among  the  currents  of  contemporary  opinion.  It  is 
also  far  from  novel  in  the  history  of  reflection. 
Considered  in  and  for  itself,  it  forms  one  of  the 
typical  analyses  of  the  ethical  and  religious  con- 
sciousness, in  contrast  to  the  endeavors  of  rational- 
ism to  express  the  momenta  of  religion  entirely  in 
terms  of  theoretical  cognition.  For  the  purposes  of 
this  discussion,  however,  it  is  more  important  to 
notice  that  in  its  origin  the  appeal  to  faith  is  often 
a  product  of  reaction.  In  some  instances  it  makes 
its  appearance  in  recoil  from  a  dominant  intellect- 
ualism,  protest  being  raised  against  the  excessive 

1  The  Destiny  of  Man,  1884;   The  Idea  of  God,  1885;  Through 
Nature  to  God,  1900;  Life  Everlasting,  1901. 
2 1902. 


THE  APPEAL   TO   FAITH  243 

rationalization  of  spiritual  principles  which  unfits 
them  to  be  springs  of  conduct,  and  the  diversion 
of  effort  from  the  practical  pursuit  of  ideal  ends  to 
their  theoretical  formulation.  This  form  of  the 
doctrine  of  faith  easily  allies  itself  with  mystical 
impulses.  Its  classical  types  are  found  in  the 
mysticism  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  stood  over 
against  the  speculative  theology  of  the  Scholastic 
doctors,  and  in  the  Pietism  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  Christians  in  Germany. 

But  the  faith-philosophy  which  is  inspired  by 
hostility  to  an  overweening  intellectualism  rarely 
attains  an  unmixed  development.  In  the  genesis 
of  the  movement  reaction  against  the  current  form 
of  reflective  thinking  is  commonly  reinforced  by 
motives  suggested  by  the  content  of  specula- 
tion. Opposition  to  the  destructive  results  of 
inquiry  mingles  with  criticism  of  the  method  by 
which  inquiry  is  conducted,  and  both  issue  in  a 
depreciation  of  the  rights  of  the  understanding 
in  favor  of  the  claims  of  the  heart  and  conscience. 
It  is  this  feature  of  the  theory  which  explains  its 
characteristic  emergence  in  periods  of  intellectual 
confusion.  The  essence  of  the  difficulty  in  such  eras 
is  that  thought  is  in  a  state  of  flux.  Ideal  interests 
are  in  jeopardy,  or  are  judged  to  be  so,  because 
the  tendencies  of  the  time  run  counter  to  principles 


244      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

which  previously  have  served  as  the  foundations 
of  belief,  or,  it  may  even  be,  to  those  on  which  in 
reason  and  by  common  consent  the  validity  of  the 
accepted  creed  depends.  The  old  convictions  are 
shaken  ;  the  new  spiritual  system,  like  the  new 
theoretical  synthesis,  is  not  yet  at  hand.  To 
relieve  the  crisis  men  turn  to  the  witness  of  faith. 
In  weakness,  some  take  refuge  from  problems  that 
they  cannot  face  in  the  peace  which  submission  to 
the  demands  of  the  ideal  nature  itself  affords. 
With  confident  assurance  the  dogmatic  believer 
retains  his  creed  or  commends  it  to  his  fellows,  in 
disregard  of  the  questions  raised  by  scholars  or 
created  by  the  progress  of  the  mind.  More  nobly, 
finer  souls,  when  the  light  grows  dim  and  the 
understanding  gropes  uncertain  of  its  way,  listen 
in  quiet  for  the  voices  of  the  spirit,  which  are 
never  silent  for  those  who  wait  to  hear. 

Of  greater  moment  than  the  sources  of  the 
appeal  to  faith  is  the  question  of  its  legitimacy.1 
In  order  to  gain  an  answer  to  this  question,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  undertake  a  certain  amount 
of  analysis.  "Faith"  is  interpreted  in  two  dif- 
ferent ways  by  those  who  make  it  their  ultimate 
reliance.  By  some  it  is  held  to  be  an  indepen- 
dent source  of  ideas ;  more  often  it  signifies  a 
1  Cf.  chap.  I.,  pp.  41-44. 


THE   APPEAL   TO  FAITH  245 

medium  of  assent,  and  not  infrequently  the  former 
usage  allies  itself  with  the  latter  or  passes  over 
into  it.  The  first  of  these  definitions,  again, 
divides  into  several  subordinate  forms,  of  very 
different  meanings  and  unequal  value.  Chief 
among  them  is  the  analysis  which  makes  faith 
or  an  assumed  faith-faculty  the  unique  organ  of 
the  religious  consciousness ;  holding  in  particular 
that  faith  in  this  sense  —  the  "divine  illumina- 
tion "  of  the  mystics,  the  "  spiritual  vision "  of 
theology  and  literature  —  escapes  the  limitations 
and  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  intellectual 
cognition  of  the  transcendent  world. 

In  regard  to  this  form  of  the  doctrine  later 
psychology  has  reached  a  decisive  conclusion. 
Granting  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  it  is 
possible  to  make  use  of  the  faculty  hypothesis 
at  all  in  the  analysis  of  mental  functions,1  it  is 
clear  that  faith  cannot  be  considered  an  origi- 
nal "faculty,"  distinct  from  the  other  powers 
of  the  mind.  It  is  on  the  contrary  a  complex 
and  derivative  function.  It  combines  phases  of 
cognition,  of  emotion,  of  conation  in  a  way  which 
excludes  it  from  the  class  of  mental  elements,  in 

1  Cf.  Baldwin's  Dictionary  of  Philosophy,  s.  v.,  vol.  I.,  p.  369;  J. 
Sully,  The  Human  Mind,  vol.  I.,  pp.  70-72  ;  G.  T.  Ladd,  Psychology: 
Descriptive  and  Explanatory,  pp.  49-60;  and  the  further  biblio- 
graphical references  given  by  these  writers. 


246      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

spite  of  the  fact  that  it  is  a  characteristic  psychosis, 
which  may  well  engage  the  attention  of  scientific 
psychologists  at  the  same  time  that  it  supplies 
the  philosopher  of  religion  with  data  of  primary 
importance. 

The  psychological  view,  moreover,  affords  aid 
in  the  principiant  valuation,  for  it  gives  at  once 
the  clew  to  the  element  of  truth  which  the  theory 
under  consideration  contains  and  the  means  of 
exposing  the  exaggeration  which  this  truth  too 
often  suffers.  The  faith-philosopher  judges  cor- 
rectly when  he  rejects  the  merely  cognitive  or 
theoretical  analysis  of  the  religious  consciousness 
in  order  to  emphasize  its  affective  and  volitional 
moments.  His  argument  is  sound,  in  the  second 
place,  when  he  contends  that  if  a  just  appraisal 
of  religion  is  to  be  secured,  the  peculiar  nature 
of  the  religious  consciousness  calls  for  the  use  of 
tests  in  measure  different  from  those  which  are 
employed  in  estimating  the  validity  of  pure  theo- 
retical principles.  But  in  regard  to  both  these 
phases  of  the  spiritual  problem,  it  is  easy  to  pass 
from  the  recognition  of  factors  which  are  often 
neglected  to  an  equally  one-sided  overestimation 
of  them.  For  much  too  often  the  advocates  of 
the  appeal  to  faith  fail  to  content  themselves 
with   the  direction  of  attention  to  the  elements 


THE  APPEAL   TO  FAITH  247 

in  religion  which  the  intellectualist  overlooks,  and 
go  on  to  a  complete  denial  of  the  competence  of 
the  intellect  in  spiritual  concerns.  Instead  of 
intellect  they  seek  to  elevate  the  ideal  nature  to 
the  throne.  Reason  in  such  matters  halts,  they 
argue,  whereas  conscience  and  intuition  give 
no  uncertain  sound ;  hence  the  latter  should  be 
listened  to,  and  the  former  refused  a  voice,  in 
spiritual  decisions.  Adequate  knowledge  is  the 
privilege  of  the  few,  but  all  may  enjoy  the  wit- 
ness of  the  inner  light;  therefore  belief  must 
rest  upon  illumination,  unless  it  is  to  be  an 
entirely  unjustifiable  requirement  of  dogmatic 
authority.1  Or  by  another  road  they  reach  a 
somewhat  different  division  between  faith  and 
reason,  although  one  which  is  no  less  destruc- 
tive than  those  which  have  just  been  mentioned 
to  the  interests  of  mind  and  heart  alike.  Join- 
ing hands  with  thinkers  who  oppose  at  once 
the  method  and  the  results  of  faith,  they  con- 
tend at  this  point  that  the  principles  of  religion, 
which  they  hold  to  be  the  products  of  feeling 
only,  can  never  be  formulated  in  terms  of  thought, 
can  never  be  construed  as  knowledge,  in  fine,  that 
the  contraposition  of  theoretical  and  spiritual  truth 

1  Cf.   Rousseau,   fimile,  IV.,  "  Profession  de  Foi  du  Vicaire 
Savoyard." 


248      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

which  deeper  minds  have  so  much  deplored  is  the 
normal  condition  of  affairs.1 

The  case  is  similar  with  regard  to  man's  knowl- 
edge of  the  Absolute.  Undoubtedly,  —  as  Augus- 
tine knew,  as  Anselm  knew,  as  our  later  age  has 
begun  to  relearn  the  lesson  which  thought  has 
too  long  despised,  —  spiritual  aspiration  counts 
for  much  in  the  process  by  which  man  is  led  to 
postulate  an  infinite  ground  of  all  things.2  And 
his  consciousness  of  the  Supreme  is  less  hampered 
by  the  limitations  of  finite  thinking  when  it  takes 
its  tone  and  color  from  the  practical  rather  than 
the  theoretical  workings  of  the  mind.  For  the  out- 
come of  the  affective  processes  is  less  defined,  and 
so  less  limited,  than  the  products  of  pure  intel- 
lection, since  the  functions  themselves  are  less 
definite ;  it  is  less  subject  to  the  forms  of  time  and 
sense  than  these,  because,  in  contrast  to  the  content 
of  knowledge,  it  is  less  run  in  the  objective  mould. 
But  it  is  idle  to  maintain,  either  that  spiritual 
vision  yields  an  idea  of  God  which  includes  no 
cognitive  elements,  or  that  the  quietest,  when 
he  gives  himself  to  the  contemplation  of  God's 
person,   escapes   all    the    difficulties  which    beset 

1  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  90-92. 

2  Cf.  Lotze,  Mikrokosmus  (3d  ed.),  vol.  III.,  pp.  560-562  ;  Grund- 
ziige  der  Religionsphilosophie,  §  6. 


THE  APPEAL   TO  FAITH  249 

the  common  consciousness  of  the  divine.  Close 
analysis  would  at  once  lay  bare  the  fallacy ;  but 
the  truth  is  perhaps  more  strikingly  shown  by 
the  perils  by  which  the  position  of  the  faith- 
philosopher  is  surrounded.  As  soon  as  he  aban- 
dons "thought"  for  "vision,"  he  is  in  danger 
of  leaving  behind  him  the  safeguards  as  well 
as  the  restrictions  which  the  intellectual  pro- 
cesses imply.  Let  him  proceed  farther  along 
this  road  and  he  reaches  the  ecstatic  exaltation 
of  the  mystic,  which  on  examination  proves  to 
contain  elements  of  a  concrete,  or  even  of  a 
sensuous  kind.  So  the  circle  is  complete.  The 
endeavor  to  avoid  the  limitations  of  thought  ends 
in  an  acceptance  of  the  limitations  of  sense. 
"  Spiritual  intuition "  turns  out  dependent  on 
concrete  imagery.  The  exaggeration  of  ideal 
thinking  has  concealed  not  exorcised  the  moment 
of  cognition ;  nay,  rather,  it  has  brought  back  the 
latter  in  its  lowest  form.1 

In  accuracy  as  in  depth,  however,  the  first  analy- 
sis of  faith  is  inferior  to  the  second,  which  defines 
it  as  an  instrument  of  assent,  conviction,  assurance 
of  truth,  or  as  such  assurance  itself.  Faith  so  con- 
strued is  marked  by  two  characteristics :  it  bases 
its  conclusions  on  practical  rather  than  theoretical 

1  Cf.  A.  Seth,  loc.  cil. 


250      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

grounds,  and  it  deals  especially  with  principles 
which  are  incapable  of  demonstration.  In  view 
of  the  second  of  these  two  characteristics,  faith 
may  be  compared  to  " belief"  in  one  of  its  chief 
meanings,  although  it  must  at  once  be  added 
that  both  terms  are  used  in  highly  ambiguous 
ways.  Belief  in  this  sense  has  been  succinctly 
described  in  one  of  the  most  recent  of  English 
dictionaries  as  conviction  based  upon  grounds  insuf- 
ficient for  positive  knowledge.  The  same  essential 
idea  has  often  been  expressed  by  the  classical 
writers,  perhaps  by  none  more  clearly  than  by 
Locke,  whose  quaint  phraseology  deserves  to  be 
quoted  :  "  Belief,  assent,  or  opinion  ...  is  the  ad- 
mitting or  receiving  any  proposition  for  true,  upon 
arguments  or  proofs  that  are  found  to  persuade 
us  to  receive  it  as  true,  without  certain  knowledge 
that  it  is  so."  * 

The  psychological  conception  of  belief  is  not  co- 
incident with  this.  The  psychologist  investigates  it 
primarily  as  a  fact  or  phenomenon  of  consciousness, 
without  regard  to  the  value  of  the  evidence  on 
which  it  may  depend.  Considering  it  from  the 
strictly  scientific  point  of  view,  he  looks  on  it  as  an 
attitude  of  mind  with  reference  to  conscious  con- 
tents, or  if  a  definition  of  the  term  in  its  proper 

1  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding,  IV.,  XV.  3. 


THE  APPEAL  TO  FAITH  251 

psychological  meaning  may  be  ventured,  as  accept- 
ance, as  the  recognition  of  thought-contents  as  real 
and  of  judgments  or  propositions  as  valid  or  true. 
In  the  study  of  this  phase  of  mental  life,  psy- 
chology has  begun  a  good  work  which  it  should  be 
encouraged  to  prosecute  farther.  In  particular,  as 
modern  psychological  investigation  broadens  and 
matures,  more  precise  conclusions  may  be  expected 
concerning  the  laws  which  determine  the  influence 
of  feeling  and  will  in  the  genesis  of  the  believing 
attitude.  When  this  result  shall  have  been  accom- 
plished, the  philosopher  and  the  theologian  will  be 
placed  in  a  position  of  advantage,  because  in  larger 
measure  than  at  present  they  will  be  provided  with 
the  data  necessary  for  their  own  inquiries. 

Nevertheless,  the  problem  for  these  latter  thinkers 
will  remain  distinct  from  the  psychological  question. 
The  issue  for  them  concerns  not  so  much  the  nature 
of  belief  as  a  mental  process  as  the  grounds  upon 
which  assent  may  legitimately  be  based.  Often,  as 
has  just  been  noted,  it  is  the  question  of  conviction 
in  cases  where  theoretical  demonstration  is  ex- 
cluded and  the  decision  must  be  made,  if  a  decision 
is  reached  at  all,  upon  evidence  confessedly  incom- 
plete. Moderately  and  broadly  stated,  the  thesis 
of  the  faith-philosophy  in  relation  to  principles 
which  are  dependent  on  support  of  this  kind  runs 


252      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IX   THOUGHT 

as  follows  :  ideal  impulses,  man's  practical  instincts, 
the  spiritual  nature,  constitute  a  source  of  evidence 
over  and  above  the  witness  of  pure  theoretical 
intelligence,  and  under  certain  conditions  their 
deliverances  possess  paramount  authority. 

In  his  advocacy  of  such  conclusions,  the  faith- 
philosopher  of  to-day  enjoys  several  advantages 
over  his  predecessor  of  earlier  times.  To  begin 
with,  it  is  open  to  him  to  appeal  to  the  historical 
recurrence  of  the  principle  which  he  defends  in 
proof  that  it  is  grounded  in  fundamental  tendencies 
of  human  nature,  which  will  not  be  denied  their 
rights.  When  the  head  fails  to  satisfy  the  aspira- 
tions of  the  spirit,  the  heart  takes  up  the  work 
which  the  intellect  has  laid  down ;  and  this,  its 
habitual  refusal  to  accept  sentence  of  rejection 
passed  upon  its  claims,  its  recurrent  tendency  to 
substitute  itself  for  the  understanding,  in  happier 
seasons  as  in  the  normal  condition  of  affairs  its 
friend  and  ally,  attests  its  title  to  consideration 
as  an  ultimate  and  legitimate  factor  in  the  genesis 
of  opinion.  Now,  it  behooves  the  historian  not  to 
be  a  partisan.  But  it  is  also  incumbent  on  him,  as 
much  as  in  him  lies,  to  point  out  the  bearing  of  his- 
torical phenomena  upon  the  issues  which  are  at 
stake.  Therefore,  it  may  be  remarked  at  this  point 
that  it  is  difficult  to  escape  the  impression  which  is 


THE  APPEAL   TO  FAITH  253 

made  by  the  frequency  and  the  intensity  of  con- 
viction with  which  the  appeal  to  faith  has  been 
commended  by  many  different  thinkers  at  critical 
stages  of  the  world's  development.  France  and 
Germany  and  Britain  and  America:  Rousseau  and 
Jacobi ;  Kant  and  Ritschl ;  Hamilton,  Romanes, 
James ;  Tennyson  and  Browning :  the  philoso- 
phy of  feeling  and  the  Glaubeiisjrfiilosojjhie ;  the 
philosophy  of  duty  which  in  the  opening  nine- 
teenth century  rang  like  a  clarion  throughout 
the  Teutonic  world,  and  the  philosophy  of  reli- 
gion which  as  that  century  drew  toward  its  close 
sought  to  rescue  faith  without  neglecting  the  results 
of  modern  critical  inquiry ;  the  religious  philosophy 
of  the  spiritually-minded  empiricists  and  of  the  art- 
ist-poets —  judgment,  indeed,  is  not  to  be  abandoned 
in  favor  of  authority,  but  it  is  equally  uncritical  to 
reject  out  of  hand  a  movement  so  persistent  as  this, 
and  one  which  is  developed  under  such  leadership. 
The  presumption  rather  holds  that  it  is  more  than 
mere  reaction,  more  than  a  forlorn  attempt  to  save 
ideal  positions  which  have  been  undermined  by 
the  advance  of  rational  investigation.  A  priori 
it  may  be  expected  also  to  represent  a  deeply 
grounded  tendency  of  reflection,  itself  in  part  pro- 
duced by  the  march  of  intellectual  progress. 

On  closer  examination  the  justness  of  this  con- 


254      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

elusion  becomes  more  evident.  In  particular,  it  is 
well  borne  out  by  the  history  of  opinion  during 
the  century  which  has  just  ended.  In  this  period 
few  things  have  been  more  remarkable  than  the 
development  of  two  contrasted  yet  related  views 
concerning  the  principles  of  practical  life.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  foundations  of  ethics  and  religion  have 
been  subjected  to  the  severest  scrutiny,  and  harass- 
ing doubts  have  been  raised  concerning  their  sta- 
bility ;  on  the  other,  the  progress  of  science  as  well 
as  of  speculation  has  yielded  increasing  evidence 
that  morals  and  faith  are  indestructible  factors  in 
human  nature  and  in  man's  development.  Psy- 
chology has  shown  that  the  religious  sentiment  is 
a  normal  element  in  mental  life.  Anthropology, 
the  new  science  of  religion  with  its  strictly  empiri- 
cal and  "  positive "  inquiries,  the  objective  his- 
torical study  of  the  various  religious  systems  — 
these  have  confirmed  the  verdict  which  the  more 
limited  researches  of  the  psychologist  supplies. 
The  investigation  of  the  problems  of  society,  so 
characteristic  of  the  mental  habit  of  the  time,  has 
not  only  emphasized  the  truth  that  morality  is  an 
indispensable  condition  of  social  existence,  but  at 
the  same  time  that  it  has  been  engaged  in  throw- 
ing new  light  on  this  venerable  truth,  it  has  brought 
into  relief  the  position  of  religion  as  a  fundamental 


THE  APPEAL   TO  FAITH  255 

element  in  social  culture.  Of  late  even  the  evolu- 
tionary theory  —  an  ally  for  an  enemy  indeed  — 
has  been  invoked  to  prove  the  eternal  and  inde- 
structible validity  of  spiritual  principles.1 

In  consequence  of  this  advance  in  the  apprecia- 
tion of  ideal  principles,  their  defence  is  less  difficult 
now  than  in  other  eras  of  transition  which  have 
preceded  the  present  age.  The  contemptuous 
rejection  of  religion,  or  of  the  established  views 
of  ethical  truth,  has  become  impossible  for  the 
instructed  and  careful  thinker.  It  remains  open 
to  him  still,  if  he  will  or  if  he  must,  to  come  to 
negative  conclusions  concerning  the  validity  of 
spiritual  principles,  especially  of  those  which  con- 
stitute the  content  of  religious  belief;  but  take 
them  into  account  he  must,  or  his  theory  of  things 
will  be  condemned  from  the  outset,  since  it  fails  to 
consider  phenomena  which  are  recognized  by  the 
great  majority  of  capable  inquirers  to  be  among 
the  things  which  it  is  essential  to  explain.  It  is 
true  that  a  number  of  contemporary  thinkers  con- 
tinue to  look  upon  ideal  conviction  as  a  mere  by- 
product of  the  natural  and  social  machine.  But 
the  influence  of   this  type  of   thought  is  waning, 

1  Cf .,  e.g.,  the  works  by  Fiske  which  have  been  referred  to 
above,  especially  Through  Nature  to  God,  pp.  131-194;  also,  chap. 
III.,  pp.  114-131,  chap.  IV.,  pp.  157-184,  and  chap.  VII.,  pp.  323- 
328,  of  the  present  treatise. 


256      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

and  its  advocates  are  losing  touch  with  the  deeper 
movements  of  their  own  time.  These  agree  in 
ascribing  fundamental  significance  to  the  spiritual 
phases  of  life,  however  divergent  the  explanations 
may  be  which  are  suggested  for  them.  In  this 
way  the  discussion  has  been  raised  to  a  higher 
plane.  The  question  for  man  of  science  and  phi- 
losopher alike  is  no  longer  whether  the  ideal  side 
of  things  merits  investigation,  but  which  is  the 
correct  view  of  it  to  take.  For  it  has  been  estab- 
lished that  in  its  inherent  meaning  —  whatever  that 
may  be  determined  to  be  —  it  possesses  a  funda- 
mental, a  distinctive,  a  permanent  importance. 

This  result,  however,  will  not  satisfy  those  who 
make  their  appeal  to  faith.  It  is  incumbent 
on  them  to  go  farther  and  make  larger  claims. 
They  are  bound  to  maintain  not  only  that  the 
ideal  side  of  human  nature  and  human  life  de- 
serves to  be  considered  in  any  attempted  explana- 
tion of  the  world,  but  that  in  and  of  itself  it 
throws  light  upon  the  questions  to  which  it  gives 
rise.  This,  as  has  been  already  suggested,1  is  the 
essence  of  the  doctrine  under  consideration.  The 
faith  principle  may  be  stated  in  various  ways,  and, 
as  will  shortly  be  argued,  it  stands  in  need  of  care- 
ful limitation  if  it  is  to  be  successfully  employed. 
1  Cf.  above,  pp.  251-252. 


THE   APPEAL   TO  EAITH  257 

But  so  much  is  indispensable  to  it  at  the  lowest 
terms.  Spiritual  aspiration,  it  must  assume,  and 
in  general  the  ideal  nature,  have  a  title  to  be  heard 
in  the  determination  of  issues  which  fall  within 
their  proper  sphere,  for  they  are  trustworthy  wit- 
nesses to  the  credibility  of  their  own  postulates. 
Not  only  as  a  matter  of  fact  do  they  influence 
decision  amid  the  interplay  of  idea  and  motive, 
but  of  right  they  ought  to  be  permitted  to  exer- 
cise this  function,  since  in  themselves  they  possess 
an  evidential  value.  Other  and  more  pretentious 
formulations  of  the  faith-philosophy  are  of  minor 
importance.  That  immediate  consciousness  is 
always  to  be  preferred  to  mediate  reflection ; 
that  instinct  is  superior  to  reason;  that  the 
understanding  errs,  while  conscience  is  infallible; 
that  unregulated  feeling  is  of  supreme  authority ; 
that  thought  must  give  place  to  "  vision  "  ;  that 
practical  consequences  constitute  the  only  criteria 
of  truth  —  when  the  position  is  stated  in  such  wise, 
it  should  not  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  it  en- 
counters contemptuous  rejection  on  the  part  of 
thoughtful  men.  But  that  the  aesthetic,  the 
ethical,  and  the  religious  consciousness  are  normal 
and  integral  elements  in  human  nature,  and  that 
thus  their  deliverances  themselves  are  evidential  — 
principles  of  this  kind  form  the  real  kernel  of  the 


258      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

doctrine,  and  these,  or  if  they  have  here  been  stated 
badly,  the  spirit  which  inspires  them  and  the  con- 
clusions to  which  it  legitimately  leads  are  capable 
of  rational  defence. 

In  support  of  the  former  of  these  conclusions 
the  argument  has  been  sufficiently  developed.  It 
remains  to  note  that,  if  its  validity  be  granted,  it 
bears  in  favor  of  the  second  and  critical  phase  of 
the  doctrine.  For  if  the  ideal  nature  is  an  inte- 
gral element  in  man,  if  its  existence  in  the  indi- 
vidual, as  a  factor  in  social  organization,  and  as 
a  result  of  evolution,  points  to  its  fundamental 
importance,  it  becomes  difficult  to  maintain  that  it 
is  to  be  refused  all  credence  when  it  comes  for- 
ward as  a  witness  in  its  own  concerns.  The  criti- 
cism which  is  designed  to  discredit  it  starts  from 
an  analysis  that  is  believed  to  show  its  incompe- 
tency to  give  testimony,  even  in  regard  to  matters 
specifically  ideal.  These  objections  will  demand 
attention  anon.  Meanwhile,  it  may  be  remarked 
that,  whatever  difficulties  they  may  reveal,  a  care- 
ful, not  to  say  an  impartial  analysis  of  the  spiritual 
functions  brings  certain  other  factors  into  view 
which  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  principal 
argument.  It  is  often  assumed  that  the  faith- 
philosophy  makes  its  appeal  to  feeling  merely  — 
that   the  will    to   believe,  as  it  is  sometimes  put 


THE   APPEAL   TO   FAITH  259 

by  the  opponents  of  the  doctrine,  is  the  wish  to 
believe  or  the  demand  to  believe,  or  to  state  the 
matter  in  another  way,  it  is  a  decision  to  give  free 
play  to  the  imagination  under  the  influence  of 
emotional  bias.  And  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
many  who  accept  the  principle  have  stated  it  in 
forms  which  give  fair  ground  for  this  interpreta- 
tion. But  provided  we  have  succeeded  in  grasp- 
ing its  true  meaning,  in  essence  it  is  not  exposed 
to  such  attacks.  For  the  acceptance  of  the  testi- 
mony of  the  spiritual  nature  in  regard  to  the  ques- 
tions of  the  inner  life  is  not  the  same  as  submission 
to  the  chance  promptings  of  feeling  and  desire,  and 
the  following  of  their  guidance,  whithersoever  it 
may  lead.  Faith  includes  elements  of  knowledge 
as  well  as  of  feeling  and  will.  And  the  forms 
of  emotion  and  volition  —  fused  with  elements 
distinctly  cognitive  —  which  are  cited  in  defence 
of  positive  belief,  are  definite  developments  of 
these  functions,  directed  to  the  appreciation  and 
the  realization  of  the  highest  ideal  ends.  Here 
the  argument  from  the  substantive  position  of  the 
spiritual  nature  in  man  merges  into  the  later  doc- 
trine —  if  indeed  it  be  so  new  as  we  are  wont  to 
think  it  —  of  worth  or  values.  It  is  not  because 
conscience  and  the  religious  sentiment  are  com- 
posed in  large  degree   of   non-cognitive   elements 


260      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

that  they  merit  a  respectful  hearing,  but  because, 
each  in  its  own  way,  they  propose  ideals  of  tran- 
scendent significance. 

An  example  will  make  this  clearer.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  question  which  for  all  thinking  minds 
pushes  itself  into  the  foreground  of  the  discussion, 
the  question  of  belief  in  the  moral  order  of  the 
world.1  Why  have  men  from  ages  out  of  mind 
believed  that  the  wrorld-order,  in  spite  of  all  ap- 
pearances to  the  contrary,  is  at  bottom  in  har- 
mony with  the  ethical  laws  which  conscience  bids 
them  follow  in  the  governance  of  their  own  in- 
finitesimal lives  ?  And  how  comes  it  that  still  in 
this  age,  despite  the  tremendous  increment  of 
power  which  the  materialistic  and  pessimistic  theo- 
ries of  the  universe  have  gained,  they  still  hold  to 
this  first  postulate  of  the  moral  life  ?  The  answer 
in  the  last  analysis  is  implied  in  the  concluding 
words  of  the  question.  Other  reasons  move  us, 
but  amid  the  stress  and  storm  of  doubt,  we  cling 
to  belief  in  a  moral  order,  we  find  it  impossible  to 
yield  up  our  faith,  because  the  abandonment  of  it 
would  mean  the  bankruptcy  of  the  spirit,  the 
despiritualization  of  the  world.  The  conclusion 
here  has  sometimes  been  called  the  result  of 
choice.     But  for  one  the  writer  would   deprecate 

1  Cf.  James,  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  51-62,  103  ff. 


THE  APPEAL  TO  FAITH  261 

the  use  of  the  term  in  this  connection.  In  one 
aspect  of  the  matter,  it  is  true,  the  element  of 
free  decision  is  so  vitally  involved  that  thanks  are 
due  to  those  who  have  emphasized  man's  responsi- 
bility for  the  conclusions  which  he  adopts  con- 
cerning the  ultimate  spiritual  issues.  But  it  is 
decision  under  the  guidance  of  the  deepest  moral 
convictions  and  the  loftiest  spiritual  ideals  that  we 
possess.  The  alternative  is  not  one  of  mere  de- 
sire. Nor  is  it  a  merely  theoretical  issue  between 
principles  for  which  the  evidence  is  in  the  balance. 
The  question  at  stake  is  indeed  a  question  of  evi- 
dence —  this  it  is  essential  always  to  keep  in  mind 
—  but  of  evidence  concerning  things  of  funda- 
mental worth.  And  this  their  meaning  for  the 
human  spirit,  their  significance  in  human  life 
and  history,  itself  is  evidence. 

A  further  illustration  of  the  principle  is  fur- 
nished by  belief  in  God.  The  grounds  of  theistic 
belief  are  numerous  and  varied ;  the  complete  argu- 
ment for  theism  is  cumulative,  composed  of  many 
convergent  lines  of  proof.1  To  different  minds  the 
several  elements  which  compose  it  appeal  in  differ- 
ent ways  and  with  varying  degrees  of  force.     Not 

1  In  particular,  the  theoretical  arguments  are  not  to  be  neglected, 
as  has  too  often  been  done  in  later  modern  times.  Even  when  the 
rights  of  the  practical  reason  are  being  defended,  the  "  consilience 
of  the  proofs  "  is  to  be  kept  in  mind. 


262      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

least  important,  however,  and  far  from  least  in 
its  coercive  influence  over  the  modern  mind,  is 
the  conviction  of  the  supreme  significance  of  the 
theistic  postulate.  The  universe  at  large  may  be 
dead  and  soulless.  As  the  sceptics  have  so  often 
told  us,  the  response  we  think  we  find  therein  to 
the  noblest  aspirations  of  our  spiritual  nature  may 
be  nothing  but  the  shadows  of  man's  own  reflec- 
tion projected  out  into  the  untenanted  void.  The 
instinctive  disposition  of  the  human  spirit  to 
crown  its  feeling  and  its  action,  as  it  completes  its 
thinking,  by  belief  in  a  Supreme  Spiritual  Being, 
may  be  a  delusive  impulse  rather  than  a  mental 
tendency  which  is  worthy  of  all  trust.1  But  these 
convictions  and  the  ideal  appreciation  of  their 
object,  these  strivings  toward  the  assurance  that 
God  exists  and  reigns,  themselves  constitute  a 
principal  obstacle  to  the  successful  defence  of  the 
sceptical  position.  And  if  it  should  be  charged 
that  the  theism  which  is  thus  reached  results 
from  yielding  to  desire  against  the  dictates  of  rea- 
son, the  reply  is  to  be  framed  on  somewhat  the 
same  lines  as  Rousseau's  criticism  of  the  selfish 
analysis  of  morals  proposed  by  Helvetius : 2  the 
opponents  of  theism  carry  the   refutation   of   the 

1  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  116-122. 

2  Cf.  Falckenberg,  op.  cit.,  p.  251. 


THE   APPEAL  TO   FAITH  263 

cavil  in  their  own  breasts,  if  they  will  but  analyze 
the  promptings  of  belief  which  they  have  been 
crushing  back  in  deference  to  what  they  consider 
the  demands  of  rational  thought.  Or  to  employ 
the  more  accurate  because  more  simple  and  spon- 
taneous words  of  St.  Augustine,  God  has  made 
us  for  Himself,  and  our  heart  is  restless  till  it 
finds  its  rest  in  Him.1 

But  this  is  obscurantism,  it  will  be  urged,  an 
abandonment  of  reason  in  favor  of  lawless  convic- 
tion. It  implies  a  return  to  lower  and  less  devel- 
oped forms  of  culture,  under  the  pretence  that  they 
contain  elements  of  truth  which  later  reflection  has 
overlooked.  Such  is  the  criticism  which  the  ap- 
peal to  faith  perennially  calls  forth  from  its  oppo- 
nents. As  the  historical  study  of  the  doctrine 
emphasizes  its  recurrent  appearance,  especially  in 
the  more  recent  periods  of  modem  thinking,  so  it 
would  be  easy  to  construct  a  catena  of  citations 
illustrating  the  development  of  these  objections  on 
the  part  of  the  defenders  of  the  rationalistic  thesis. 
Jacobi,  who  formulated  the  principle  in  a  blunder- 
ing, not  to  say  an  unworthy  way,  was  especially 
unfortunate  in  drawing  the  fire  of  his  antagonists. 
From  Lessing  to  Hegel,  many  of  his  contemporaries 
overwhelmed  his   views  with    criticism,  often  not 

1  Confessions,  I.  1. 


264      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 


unmingled  with  scorn.  So  Kant,  in  his  review  of 
the  controversy  between  Mendelssohn  and  Jacobi, 
advocates  his  own  doctrine  of  "  faith  from  a  need 
of  reason,"  and,  protesting  alike  against  the  exag- 
gerations of  dogmatic  rational  theology  and  the 
faith  which  discards  reason,  breaks  out  at  the 
close  in  a  passage  which,  apart  from  its  context, 
might  well  be  made  the  watchword  of  the  pure 
intellectualists :  — 

"  Friends  of  the  human  race  and  of  that  which 
is  most  sacred  to  man  !  Accept  what  after  careful 
and  sincere  examination  seems  to  you  most  worthy 
of  belief,  whether  it  be  facts  or  rational  principles, 
—  only  do  not  deprive  reason  of  that  which  makes 
her  the  supreme  earthly  good,  namely  her  preroga- 
tive to  be  the  ultimate  criterion  of  truth.  .  .  ."  1 

Again,  to  come  at  once  to  the  present  age,  James 
has  quoted  similar  objections  from  the  critics  of 
the  later  and  more  moderate  statements  of  the 
principle.  Referring  to  the  fundamental  assump- 
tion of  empirical  science,  the  uniformity  of  nature, 
he  remarks :  — 

"  With  regard  to  all  other  possible  truths,  how- 
ever, a  number  of  our  most  influential  contempo- 
raries think  that  an  attitude  of  faith  is  not  only 

1"Was  heisst:  sich  im  Denken  orientiren?"  Werke  (Harten- 
stein,  2d  ed.),  vol.  IV.,  p.  352. 


THE  APPEAL   TO   FAITH  265 

illogical  but  shameful.  Faith  in  a  religious  dogma 
for  which  there  is  no  outward  proof,  but  which  we 
are  tempted  to  postulate  for  our  emotional  interests, 
just  as  we  postulate  the  uniformity  of  nature  for 
our  intellectual  interests,  is  branded  by  Professor 
Huxley  'as  the  lowest  depth  of  immorality'  .  .  . 
Professor  Clifford  calls  '  it  guilt  and  sin '  to  believe 
even  the  truth  without '  scientific  evidence.'  " * 

But  it  was  reserved  for  one  of  Professor  James's 
pupils  and  friends  to  put  the  attack  on  the  faith- 
philosophy  in  its  most  trenchant  form.  Doctor 
Miller  is  convinced  "  that  such  precepts  are  in 
effect  an  attempt  to  corrupt  intelligence,  that  they 
aim  a  deadly  blow  at  the  vital  instincts  of  the 
upright  intellect."  And  again,  "  The  Will  to  Be- 
lieve is  the  will  to  deceive  —  to  deceive  one's  self; 
and  the  deception,  which  begins  at  home,  may  be 
expected  in  due  course  to  pass  on  to  others  .  .  .  "; 
and,  to  make  but  one  more  citation,  its  advocate 
"  incites  us  to  take  refuge  in  scarlet  sins  (as  timorous 
logicians  fancy  them)  of  imaginative  faith."  2 

The  overstatements  involved  in  these  criticisms 
may  safely  be  disregarded.  In  essence,  however, 
they  are  of  importance,  since  they  give  expression 

1  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  91-92 ;  cf.  also,  pp.  7-8,  129  ff. 

2  Dickinson  S.  Miller,  " '  The  Will  to  Believe  '  and  the  Duty  to 
Doubt."  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  January,  1^99,  pp.  172, 
17.5,  177. 


266      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

to  the  principle  fundamentally  in  dispute  between 
the  parties  to  the  debate :  the  issue,  as  the  ration- 
alist describes  it,  between  reason  and  unreason,  or 
as  it  is  phrased  by  his  opponent,  between  a  barren 
intellectualism  and  the  due  recognition  of  spiritual 
faith. 

The  controversy  is  of  further  moment  because  it 
brings  to  a  point  the  ultimate  questions  concerning 
the  nature,  the  grounds,  and  the  criteria  of  faith. 
To  the  first  of  these  more  than  one  reference  has 
already  been  made,  with  especial  consideration  of 
the  matter  or  content  of  the  faith-function. 

A  second  phase  of  the  same  question,  and  one 
which  raises  issues  of  peculiar  difficulty,  relates 
more  directly  to  the  form  than  to  the  content  of 
faith.  Granted  that  faith  has  a  substantive  value, 
what  is  the  form  or  character  of  the  mental  pro- 
cesses involved  ?  Is  the  judgment  of  appraise- 
ment the  outcome  of  discursive  thinking,  or  is 
it  essentially  and  always,  as  so  many  of  the  faith- 
philosophers  have  contended,  direct,  immediate, 
intuitive  ?  Now,  few  students  of  the  philosophical 
sciences  in  their  later  developments  would  hesitate 
to  solve  this  problem  by  rejecting  the  disjunction 
which  is  implied  in  the  statement  of  the  issue. 
For  it  is  not  so  much  a  case  of  either-or  as  of  com- 
plexity and  combination.     On  the  one  hand,  there 


THE   APPEAL  TO   FAITH  267 

is  the  immediate  judgment  of  conviction,  the  in- 
tuitive apprehension  of  worth  or  values,  and  the 
believing  attitude  which  ensues  when  the  mind  — 
"  heart  and  head,"  thought,  feeling,  will,  in  one  — 
accepts  the  decision  rendered.  This  is  the  leap  of 
faith  to  its  mark,  the  living  experience  of  truth,  so 
much  commended  by  the  poets  as  well  as  the  phi- 
losophers of  the  school.  And  his  must  be  a  dull 
spirit  who  does  not  kindle  into  fervor  when  the 
verities  of  the  ages  stand  forth  before  the  vision  of 
the  soul,  framed  as  in  a  noontide  splendor,  or  when 
the  saints  of  earth  depict  in  glowing  words  their 
assured  conviction  of  supernal  truth. 

Nor  is  such  intuitive  belief  without  a  real  value. 
As  a  constituent  factor  in  the  ideal  apprehension 
of  spiritual  truth,  if  it  should  not  rather  be  termed 
a  distinctive  type  of  ideal  conviction,  it  possesses 
an  inherent  validity  not  to  be  discredited  by  the 
severest  rational  criticism.  In  eras  of  doubt,  more- 
over, this  form  of  belief  gains  additional  signifi- 
cance. In  it  the  spirit  of  the  time  finds  ready  for  its 
work  an  instrument  of  assent  which  depends,  or 
at  least  appears  to  depend,  on  no  prolonged  process 
of  ratiocination.  The  individual  is  baffled,  the  age 
hesitant  or  cynic,  because  neither  can  plainly  dis- 
cover truth.  In  order  to  effective  living  and  in 
order  to  mental  peace,  there  is  need  for  an  author- 


268      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

ity  which,  speaking  with  directness  as  with  power, 
shall  bring  the  inner  conflict  to  a  close.  But  pu- 
rity of  heart  and  clearness  of  spiritual  perception 
may  remain  unimpaired  by  the  failure  of  specu- 
lative thinking  to  reach  a  settled  decision  concern- 
ing the  questions  of  belief.  Then  the  immediacy 
with  which  faith  at  times  renders  its  verdict  in 
ideal  causes  becomes  of  moment  for  the  individual 
and  for  society,  as  well  as  the  evidence  which  it 
supplies  over  and  above  the  testimony  of  pure 
theoretical  thought.  By  its  immediate  judgment 
of  ideal  values  it  ends  the  long-continued  balanc- 
ing of  arguments  and  counter-arguments  which 
seem  to  lead  nowhither.  The  positive  conclusions 
which  it  impresses  upon  the  believing  mind  steady 
the  spirit  to  take  up  with  new  courage  the  work  of 
life.  The  age  as  a  whole  is  checked  in  its  nega- 
tion, as  now  one  now  other  of  the  leaders,  moved 
himself  by  inborn  spiritual  aspiration,  guides  it 
along  the  way  of  a  return  to  faith.1 

Relatively,  therefore,  this  exercise  of  the  faith- 
function  is  legitimate.  In  and  of  itself  it  has  an 
inherent  validity.  In  eras  of  transition  it  renders 
special  service  because  of  its  peculiar  adaptation  to 
the  needs  of  the  time.  But  these,  its  high  qualities 
and  value  easily  lend  themselves  to  misinterpreta- 

i  Cf.  chap.  I.,  pp.  41-42. 


THE  APPEAL   TO  PAITH  269 

tion.     The  means  of  help  for  burdened  souls  which 
faith  supplies,  comes  to  be  vaunted  as  a  source  of 
certain   insight  into  matters  of  a  spiritual  kind. 
The  immediacy  of  ideal  belief  is  held  to  raise  it 
above  the  vicissitudes,  as  above  all  the  lingering 
delays,  of  reasoned  investigation,  until   it  is   con- 
strued as  a  supreme  spiritual  faculty  which  makes 
men   altogether   independent  of   the  processes  of 
discursive  thinking  when  they  attack  the  ultimate 
problems  of  the    mind.      It  is  obvious,  however, 
that  these  conclusions  greatly  overstate  the  truth. 
As  a  fact  of  mere  analysis,  the  immediate  forms  of 
conviction  rarely  if  ever  exhaust  the  components 
of  the  mental  state  which  is  termed  faith.     Even 
in  cases  in  which  the  presence  of  mediate  elements 
is  not  at  once  discernible,  reflection  will  lay  bare 
the  origin  through  process  of  much  that  appears  to 
be  direct.     How  varied  are  the  impulses,  for  ex- 
ample,   which  together  make  up   the    springs    of 
faith  in  any  one   of  the   fundamental  articles   of 
religion.       Is   it  belief    in   God,    is    it    belief   in 
life   beyond    the    grave,   or    in    human    responsi- 
bility for  conduct,  or  a  divine  governance  of  this 
world  as  of  the  next  —  who  can  say  in  regard  to 
any  given  man  how  much  of  heredity  and  train- 
ing, how  much  of  experience  and  reflection,  how 
much  of  the  reasoning  which  all  men  do  upon  the 


270      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

great  outstanding  problems  of  life  and  existence, 
how  much  in  short  of  discursive  process,  proxi- 
mate or  remote,  and  how  much  of  un mediated 
ideal  apprehension  have  entered  into  the  resultant 
personal  conviction  ?  In  fact,  one  thing  in  regard 
to  the  whole  matter,  and  one  only,  is  entirely  clear : 
the  instances  of  pure  intuitive  faith  must  be  in- 
frequent, if  they  occur  at  all ;  in  the  common  case 
faith  includes  causes,  reasons,  motives  of  many  and 
divers  kinds. 

But  here  as  before  the  question  of  validity  is 
more  important  than  the  question  of  analysis,  and 
the  answer  to  it  more  decisive.  For  it  is  evident  that 
the  appeal  to  the  immediacy  of  faith,  rather  than 
to  faith  itself,  mistakes  the  meaning  of  the  doctrine 
as  a  whole.  The  value  of  directness  in  the  judg- 
ment of  belief  is  incidental  rather  than  essential, 
however  great  in  any  given  circumstances  it  may 
prove  to  be.  In  the  long  run  the  significance  of 
faith  depends,  as  its  truth  does  always,  upon  its  ideal- 
ity, not  upon  its  abridgment  of  the  consciousness 
which  constitutes  conviction  or  which  issues  therein. 
The  faith-philosophers,  therefore,  who  commend 
unreflective  assent  to  positive  principles  as  the 
sure  key  to  the  riddles  of  the  world  and  human 
life,  overlook  the  real  strength  of  their  own  position 
in  their  concern  to  give  it  the  greatest  practical 


THE   APPEAL   TO   FAITH  271 

effect.  In  order  to  aid  their  fellows  or  assist  their 
age,  they  emphasize  the  part  instead  of  the  whole ; 
they  risk  the  permanent  that  they  may  satisfy 
present  and  pressing  need. 

Thus  the  discussion  of  the  first  of  the  final  prob- 
lems which  were  proposed  on  page  266,  the 
nature  of  faith,  leads  to  a  consideration  of  the 
second  also,  the  grounds  of  faith.  The  same  sub- 
ject has  been  further  considered  in  the  earlier  por- 
tions of  the  argument,  and  it  will  be  involved  once 
more  in  the  answer  to  the  third  question,  which 
concerns  the  criteria,  standards,  or  tests  of  faith. 
To  this,  therefore,  attention  may  at  once  be  directed. 

The  question  of  the  criteria  of  faith  includes  the 
question  of  the  limits  within  which  it  may  legiti- 
mately be  employed,  and  both  suggest  the  problem 
which  is  perhaps  the  most  critical  of  the  whole  dis- 
cussion, How  can  faith  be  guarded  against  the 
danger  of  degenerating  into  caprice  ?  Tastes  pro- 
verbially differ,  and  those  forms  of  mental  life 
which  are  most  colored  by  emotion  and  will  are 
also  most  exposed  to  the  influence  of  subjective 
bias,  no  matter  how  fully  they  express,  or  rather 
in  part  just  because  they  express,  the  deepest  im- 
pulses of  the  personal  life.  Even  moral  judgments, 
to  which  the  judgments  of  faith  may  most  appo- 
sitely be  compared,  vary  in  individuals  and  classes, 


272      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

with  personal,  national,  and  racial  circumstance,  in 
consequence  of  inheritance,  training,  experience,  or 
the  chance  vicissitudes  of  daily  life.  How,  then,  is 
faith  to  escape  becoming  the  sport  of  prejudice  and 
passion  ?  Is  the  Protestant  Christian  to  put  im- 
plicit trust  in  the  deliverances  of  his  spiritual 
nature  ?  and  the  Catholic  ?  and  the  Jew  ?  And  if 
so,  by  what  right  can  the  same  privilege  be  denied 
to  the  Mohammedan,  or  the  Hindu,  or  to  any 
spiritually  minded  pagan,  not  now  to  speak  of  the 
conscientious  secularist  or  atheist,  let  alone  the 
religionists  of  the  barbarian  or  savage  races  ?  At 
this  point  the  advocates  of  the  faith-philosophy 
are  caught  in  a  dilemma.  Instead  of  yielding  re- 
sults absolutely  certain,  the  instrument  of  convic- 
tion to  which  they  appeal  is  found  to  be  peculiarly 
liable  to  error,  unless  criteria  can  be  provided  which 
shall  make  it  possible  to  distinguish  between  its 
legitimate  and  its  illegitimate  use.  Either  "  faith  " 
is  mere  credence,  or  its  grounds  and  its  criteria 
must  be  set  forth. 

To  this  problem  many  of  the  "faith-philoso- 
phers "  have  consciously,  or  half-unconscious  of 
the  import  of  their  work,  addressed  their  thought ; 
with  results  which  are  fitted  to  throw  light  upon 
the  question,  although  there  are  points  which  still 
continue  in  need  of  elucidation.     In  the  first  place, 


THE   APPEAL   TO   FAITH  273 

it  is  plain  that  the  area  within  which  ideal  belief  is 
legitimate  is  limited  by  certain  general  principles, 
which  are  in  part  connected  with  the  character  of 
belief  at  large,  in  part  depend  upon  the  progress  of 
positive  knowledge.  The  evidence  of  faith  may 
not  be  pleaded  in  behalf  of  principles  whose  char- 
acter is  purely  theoretical,1  nor  may  it  be  cited  in 
contravention  of  conclusions  which  are  based  upon 
proofs  of  demonstrative  force.  Questions  of  pure 
science,  for  example,  are  by  general  consent  ex- 
cluded from  the  list  of  those  to  which  faith  may  be 
held  to  apply  ;  even  the  scientific  accuracy  or  inac- 
curacy of  Holy  Scripture  has  ceased  to  be  a  subject 
of  concern,  except  to  a  few  theologians  of  the  ex- 
treme conservative  school.  And  it  will  not  be  seri- 
ously argued  that  faith  has  cogency  sufficient  to  over- 
throw principles  for  which  the  evidence  of  knowledge 
is  complete.  The  attempt  has  often  been  made  — 
erroneously,  however,  in  the  opinion  of  the  writer 2 

1  Unless,  as  is  done  by  certain  enthusiasts,  the  scope  of  the 
faith  doctrine  is  extended  to  cover  fundamental  speculative  as 
well  as  fundamental  practical  problems.  This  view,  however,  has 
been  rejected  by  more  cautious  thinkers,  especially  in  later  times. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  widely  held  opinion  that  "faith"  is  the 
equivalent  in  the  sphere  of  practical  consciousness  of  a  priori 
reason  in  the  intellectual  sphere,  and  that  its  deliverances  stand 
on  the  same  level  with  theoretical  axioms.  On  both  these  ques- 
tions compare  Lotze,  Mikrokosmus  (3d  ed.),  vol.  III.,  pp.  519-553, 
although  his  discussion  is  not  to  be  commended  in  all  respects. 

2  Cf.  above,  pp.  247-248. 


274      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

—  to  show  that  the  spiritual  problems,  or  the  most 
of  them,  are  entirely  inaccessible  to  speculative 
intelligence ;  and  it  may  be  reasonably  questioned 
whether  a  case  is  ever  finally  closed  in  regard  to 
which  faith,  when  it  has  been  freed  from  dis- 
turbing bias,  tested  by  critical  standards,  and  so 
found  to  voice  not  the  chance  promptings  of 
individual  minds  but  a  deep  spiritual  conviction  of 
the  human  heart,  still  testifies  in  a  positive  sense 
in  the  face  of  grave  theoretical  objections.  But 
when  rational  thought  has  rendered  a  deliberate,  a 
complete,  a  final  decision  concerning  matters  which 
lie  within  its  province,  the  spirit  in  the  end  must 
also  conform.  The  ideal  nature  is  a  competent 
witness  only  when  its  own  interests  are  in  question, 
and  even  then  its  testimony  is  limited  by  the  estab- 
lished results  of  thought. 

Here  the  inquiry  leads  on  difficult  ground.  As 
a  matter  of  abstract  logic,  the  criteria  or  canons  of 
faith  which  have  been  suggested  are  plain  :  when 
the  attempt  is  made  to  apply  them  in  practice, 
grave  perplexities  at  once  arise.  For  neither  of 
the  rules  discussed  is  of  such  a  kind  as  to  admit 
precise  objective  definition.  Some  questions  are 
theoretical  and  not  ideal  beyond  the  peradventure 
of  a  doubt,  others  pertain  to  the  aesthetic,  the  ethical, 
or  the  religious  consciousness   without  impinging 


THE   APPEAL   TO   FAITH  275 

upon  matters  of  theoretical  proof.  But  what  of 
those  cases  in  which  the  very  sting  of  doubt  is 
caused  by  the  mingling  of  data  originally  neutral 
and  spiritual  implications  in  one  and  the  same 
crucial  problem  ?  The  general  principle  is  clear, 
the  application  of  it  is  beset  by  an  acute  form  of 
the  difficulty  which  commonly  embarrasses  the  con- 
crete use  of  abstract  standards,  the  difficulty  of 
adjusting  them  with  precision  to  particular  cases. 
Again,  who  shall  decide  when  a  principle  or  system 
is  so  definitely  established  that  it  must  not  be 
believed,  however  strong  the  impulses  of  the  heart 
may  be  ?  Matters  of  demonstration  are  of  course 
excluded.  But  on  any  strict  analysis  these  must 
be  reckoned  few;  and  just  as  he  who  assents  to 
such  conclusions  only  as  are  demonstratively  proven 
will  find  his  stock  of  accepted  principles  shrinking 
to  a  scanty  store,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  the  faith- 
philosopher  who  holds  it  allowable,  at  the  behest 
of  the  spiritual  man,  to  believe  any  doctrine  not 
unquestionably  false,  reserves  for  himself  a  wide 
range  of  doubtful  positions  about  which  his  thought 
may  roam.  For  it  is  indispensable  to  take  into 
account  the  force  of  rational  probability  as  well  as 
the  evidence  of  demonstration;  and  both  must  be 
considered  in  relation  to  intellectual  progress,  and 
in  the  light  of  its  results.     The  great  body  of  prin- 


27G      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

ciples,  scientific,  historical,  social,  philosophical,  as 
well  as  ethical  and  religious,  which  make  up  what 
is  termed  the  modern  view  of  the  world,  is  for  the 
most  part  composed  of  conclusions  of  a  probable,  or 
highly  probable,  kind  rather  than  of  positions 
demonstrated  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt. 
But  it  cannot  be  maintained  that  faith  has  a  right 
to  accept  or  reject  these  at  will,  even  though  in 
certain  cases  it  finds  itself  pressed  by  the  con- 
sequences to  which  they  lead.  Such  a  course  of 
procedure  on  its  part  would  justify  the  extreme 
criticisms  of  its  opponents,  for  it  would  be  irra- 
tionalism  in  a  naked  form. 

This  necessity  for  bringing  faith  into  correlation 
with  other  forms  of  culture  has  gained  wide-spread 
recognition.  The  criteria  to  which  it  points,  how- 
ever, are  external  and  incomplete.  Inquiry  has 
therefore  more  than  once  been  made  for  canons 
of  belief  immediately  dependent  on  the  spiritual 
nature  of  man,  or  which  issue  from  this  in  its 
co-working  with  the  other  functions  of  the  mind. 
The  form  which  such  inquiries  have  taken  may  in 
a  general  way  be  described  as  an  endeavor  to  de- 
duce the  believable  principles  of  ethics  and  religion 
from  the  nature  of  ideal  consciousness  or  to  formu- 
late them  as  the  normal  outcome  of  its  exercise 
discovered  by  painstaking  analysis. 


THE   APPEAL   TO   FAITH  277 

The  most  conservative  attempt  of  this  kind  was 
made  by  Kant.1  The  pure  reason,  Kant  argued, 
culminates  in  Ideas  —  the  soul  and  its  immortal 
destiny,  freedom  in  contrast  to  the  mechanical 
causality  of  the  phenomenal  world,  God  as  the 
Supreme  Being  back  of  self  and  world  alike  —  for 
which  it  can  produce  no  adequate  proof.  But  rea- 
son in  its  practical  functioning  finds  warrant  for 
ascribing  reality  to  these,  though  only  in  the  prac- 
tical sense.  Freedom  is  implicated  in  the  a  'priori 
and  unconditional  legislation  of  conscience ;  im- 
mortality and  God  are  also  necessary  postulates,  if 
the  demands  of  the  practical  reason  that  perfect 
holiness  be  attained  and  that  character  receive  its 
due  reward  are  to  be  satisfied.  The  fundamental 
principles  of  ethics  and  religion,  then,  may  with 
confidence  be  made  matters  of  conviction.  They 
are  incapable  of  theoretical  demonstration,  but  they 
are  legitimate  objects  of  "  moral  faith." 

Considered  broadly,  the  Kantian  view  forms  the 
most  firmly  consolidated  theory  of  practical  faith 
which  has  ever  been  proposed.  How  imposing, 
even  impregnable,  it  seems.  Here  is  no  room  left 
for   belief  at   random,  no  yielding  to  impulse  or 

1  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft  (the  "  Dialektik  " ;  and  the  "  Metho- 
denlehre,"  Hpstk.  I.,  §§2-3,  Hpstk.  II.);  Kritik  der  praktischen 
Vernunft;  Kritik  der  Urtheilskraft,  especially  the  " Methodenlehre 
der  teleologischeu  Urtheilskraft." 


278      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

chance  desire.  Man,  guided  always  by  reason, 
gains  a  creed  whose  articles  correspond  to  the 
supreme  endeavors  of  speculative  intelligence  at 
the  same  time  that  they  give  expression  to  the 
minimum  of  truth  in  default  of  which  his  ethical 
life  becomes  no  better  than  a  delusion.  And  yet 
it  would  be  difficult  to  meet  the  objection  that  the 
high  promise  of  the  Kantian  analysis  is  only  par- 
tially fulfilled.  At  very  least,  it  is  evident  that  the 
religious  consciousness  suffers  because  of  the  posi- 
tion assigned  to  it  by  the  critique  of  reason.  Not 
only  in  the  outcome  of  the  inquiry,  as  in  Kant's 
own  sympathy,  is  religion  construed  as  a  corol- 
lary to  ethics  rather  than  as  an  independent  inter- 
est, but  the  mode  of  its  defence  brings  it  into 
subordination  to  the  argument  in  behalf  of  a  priori 
morals.  Freedom  is  made  the  indispensable  con- 
dition of  morality  and  altogether  essential  to  the 
validity  of  the  moral  law.  Immortality  and  God 
are  also  postulated,  but  the  argument  by  which 
their  assumption  is  justified  is  less  direct  than  the 
defence  of  freedom  —  being  based  on  an  interpre- 
tation of  the  moral  consciousness  with  regard  to 
the  summum  bonum  which  in  itself  is  not  beyond 
the  possibility  of  challenge,  and  the  successive 
deductions  from  which,  in  spite  of  their  influence 
on  subsequent  theories  of  religion  and  morals,  may 


THE   APPEAL   TO  FAITH  279 

fairly  be  said  to  possess  a  progressively  diminish- 
ing force.1 

A  complete  discussion  of  the  causes  which  led  to 
this  comparative  neglect  of  one  entire  aspect  of 
the  spiritual  life  would  transcend  the  limits  of  the 
present  inquiry.  It  may  be  remarked,  however, 
that  Kant's  initial  error  consisted  in  his  failure  to 
realize  the  relative  independence  of  religion,  and 
that  a  safeguard  against  the  misconception  lay  to 
hand  in  a  due  appreciation  of  the  significance  of 
religious  principles  considered  from  the  standpoint 
of  worth  or  values.  And  this  suggests  a  further 
question  which  cannot  be  argued  here,  although 
it  is  more  doubtful  than  the  first,2  the  question 
whether  in  general  Kant  did  not  underestimate  the 
moment  of  worth  or  meaning,  in  his  concern  to 
frame  a  practical  system  which,  like  his  theoretical 
philosophy,  should  be  grounded  in  reason  only. 
The  extraordinary  merit  of  the  Kantian  theory  it 
vrould  be  idle  to  deny.  And  not  the  least  impor- 
tant phase  of  its  influence  has  been  the  part  it  has 

1  In  particular,  the  argument  for  immortality  is  but  one  of  the 
several  possible  arguments,  even  if  it  be  accepted  without  criticism 
at  its  face  value ;  while  the  argument  for  God  postulates  his  ex- 
istence as  a  completely  transcendent  Being,  working  from  without 
to  bring  the  natural  and  the  moral  order  into  ultimate  accord. 

2  Because  of  the  elements  in  the  Kantian  doctrine  which  look 
in  an  opposite  direction,  e.g.,  the  insistence  on  the  supreme  mean- 
ing of  moral  personality  and  the  good  will. 


280      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

played  in  the  change  from  the  abstract  intellectual- 
ism  of  earlier  modern  thinking  to  the  more  com- 
prehensive views  of  later  times.  But  it  has  also 
the  defects  of  its  qualities.  Hence  it  becomes  at 
least  a  defensible  conclusion,  that  Kant's  insistence 
that  faith  in  every  case  should  be  a  faith  of  reason, 
and  reason  in  its  a  priori  form,  detracted  from  his 
full  recognition  of  faith's  ideal  nature. 

A  second  form  of  the  attempt  to  determine  the 
canons  and  the  objects  of  faith  diverges  from  the 
Kantian  theory,  but  may  be  treated  under  the  same 
general  head.  A  summary  by  Fiske  will  serve  to 
illustrate  the  type,  although  it  was  framed  for 
another  purpose  and  in  support  of  a  different  phi- 
losophy of  belief :  — 

"  Now  in  all  ages  and  in  every  form  of  Religion, 
the  theory  has  comprised  three  essential  elements  : 
first,  belief  in  Deity,  as  quasi-human ;  secondly, 
belief  in  an  Unseen  World  in  which  human  beings 
continue  to  exist  after  death  ;  thirdly,  recognition 
of  the  ethical  aspects  of  human  life  as  related  in  a 
special  and  intimate  sense  to  this  Unseen  World. 
These  three  elements  are  alike  indispensable.  If 
any  one  of  the  three  be  taken  away,  the  remnant 
cannot  properly  be  called  Religion."  l 

In  faith-philosophies  of  the  type  which  is  illus- 

1  Through  Nature  to  God,  pp.  174-175. 


THE   APPEAL   TO   FAITH  281 

trated  by  this  statement  positions  fundamental  to 
the  system  of  Kant  are  lacking.  The  appeal  here 
is  to  the  naturalness  of  faith,  not  to  its  basis  in 
a  priori  morals.  Certain  principles  of  ethics  and 
certain  elements  of  religious  truth  are  described  as 
the  constituent  factors  in  the  ideal  consciousness, 
and  therefore  entitled  to  be  received  on  the  evi- 
dence of  faith.  They  are  the  essential  elements  in 
all  systems  of  belief,  as  some  thinkers  tend  to  put 
the  argument,  or  they  are  the  result  to  which 
morals  and  faith  reduce,  when,  under  the  guidance 
of  enlightened  opinion,  they  are  freed  alike  from 
the  burden  of  early  superstitions  and  the  dogmatic 
overgrowth  of  later  forms  of  culture.  As  indis- 
pensable to  the  integrity  of  the  ideal  nature,  there- 
fore, and  as  the  normal  products  of  its  activity, 
they  and  they  alone  can  lay  claim  to  the  benefits 
of  its  sivpport.  Less  than  these  faith  cannot  accept 
without  self-negation ;  to  assent  to  more  is  to  open 
the  door  to  imaginative  dreaming. 

In  view  of  the  preceding  discussion,  a  few  addi- 
tional remarks  will  suffice  to  define  the  issue  in 
regard  to  this  second  formulation  of  the  faith 
doctrine.  Of  great  value  in  itself  and  strongly 
grounded,  it  yet  lies  open  to  objection  if  the  claims 
which  it  sets  up  are  taken  in  the  full  literal  sense. 
For    it    would    require  a  broad   interpretation    of 


282      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

immortality  and  responsibility  and  God  to  make 
tliem  the  sole  essential  factors  in  all  the  various 
forms  of  religious  theory  which  are,  or  which  have 
been,  current  among  men.  And  provided  the  list 
of  credible  doctrines  is  viewed  as  a  matter  of  strict 
proof,  it  is  not  evident  how  the  critic  is  to  be  con- 
futed should  he  emphasize  the  relation  of  the  sub- 
ject to  the  facts  of  religious  evolution.  If  it  is 
difficult  to  prove  the  universal  prevalence  of  the 
principles  in  question  in  the  present  and  the  past, 
what  warrant  can  be  shown,  warrant  that  is  of 
an  unimpeachable  kind,  for  expecting  their  con- 
tinued preeminence  in  the  course  of  future  devel- 
opment? Nor  will  the  reference  to  enlightened 
opinion  adequately  relieve  the  situation.  It  is  a 
matter  of  record  that  enlightenment  itself  is  a 
relative  term;  and  the  orthodoxy  of  progress  or 
of  negation,  like  the  orthodox}'  of  traditional 
belief,  is  apt  with  considerable  exactness  to  coin- 
cide with  the  conclusions  which  given  schools  or 
thinkers  themselves  have  reached.  Least  of  all,  it 
would  seem  as  a  matter  of  consistency,  ought  en- 
lightened opinion  to  be  appealed  to  as  an  unalter- 
able standard  by  those  whose  own  views  incline 
them  toward  affiliation  with  the  radical  wing. 

Again,  as  in  regard  to  the  Kantian  theory,  it  is 
not  contended  that  the  view  under  discussion  is 


THE  APPEAL   TO   FAITH  283 

devoid  of  force.  On  the  contrary,  it  represents  in 
the  opinion  of  the  writer  a  phase  of  thought  on 
which,  when  it  is  properly  guarded,  the  faith- 
philosophy  may  well  rely.  At  this  late  stage  of 
the  inquiry,  it  hardly  needs  to  be  repeated  that  one 
most  cogent  ground  for  the  legitimacy  of  the  appeal 
to  faith  is  furnished  by  the  central  position  of  the 
ideal  faculties  in  the  organism  of  the  mind  ; 1  so 
also  the  deliverances  of  the  spirit,  when  they  can 
be  shown  to  be  fundamental,  enjoy  a  title  than 
which  none  is  clearer  to  the  trust  that  is  to  be  put 
in  the  spiritual  nature  as  a  whole.  But  they  merit 
this  acceptance  only  when  their  position  is  defined  ; 
and  this  determination  is  itself  a  matter  of  judg- 
ment. The  fact,  indeed,  does  not  reduce  the  mean- 
ing of  the  argument  to  a  nullity.  It  does  suggest 
the  necessity  for  employing  every  form  of  pro- 
cedure possible,  no  one  being  favored  to  the  rejection 
of  the  rest.  In  particular,  it  makes  it  advisable  to 
supplement  the  method  of  defining  the  sphere  of 
faith  through  an  analysis  of  the  spiritual  nature  by 
some  method  which  shall  take  into  more  direct 
account  the  character  of  the  objects  presented  for 
belief. 

Thus,  in  the  third  place,  the  discussion  returns 
to  the  domain  of   values.     Comparison  with   the 

1  Cf.  above,  pp.  25:)  If. 


284      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

conditions  of  belief  in  general  fixes  the  limits  of 
the  credible.  Analysis  of  the  ideal  consciousness 
and  of  the  outcome  of  its  working  controls  the 
subjectivity  of  individual  opinion  by  ascertaining 
the  doctrines  which  are  fundamental  to  practical 
reason  or  reached  in  the  normal  course  of  its  devel- 
opment. The  judgment  of  appreciation,  although 
it  is  more  exposed  than  these  to  the  clangers  of 
un- rationalized  conviction,  includes  two  elements 
of  great  importance :  it  springs  from  the  exercise 
of  ideal  faith  in  its  most  unmixed  form;  and  it 
considers  primarily  the  objects  rather  than  the 
subject  of  faith.  As  a  credible  hypothesis  —  credi- 
ble, that  is,  when  it  is  tested  by  the  conditions 
required  of  all  propositions  which  on  any  grounds 
may  be  received  as  true  —  stands  higher  or  lower 
in  the  scale  of  meaning,  of  significance,  or,  finally, 
since  there  is  no  other  phrase  which  so  precisely 
expresses  the  idea,  in  the  scale  of  ideal  worth,  to 
this  degree  it  has  a  title  to  acceptance. 

The  difficulty  here  will  be  to  establish  such  a 
scheme  of  values.  For,  unfortunately,  the  method 
of  faith  which  starts  from  the  consideration  of  the 
objects  of  faith  does  not  guarantee  the  exclusion  of 
subjective  factors  from  the  judging  process.  Rather, 
as  suggested,  its  purity  as  faith,  its  very  freedom 
from   extrinsic    elements,    raises   the    question   of 


THE   APPEAL   TO  PAITH  285 

criteria  again  in  an  acute  form.  Advantage  must 
therefore  be  taken  of  all  manifestations  of  the 
faith-function  which  show  an  organic  development, 
or  point  to  the  existence  or  the  formation  of 
categories  of  ideal  thinking,  or  admit  of  comparison 
with  other  criteria,  preferably  themselves  ideal, 
which  are  already  recognized  as  sound.  The  con- 
currence of  opinion  among  men  or  among  larger  or 
smaller  sections  of  mankind,  the  harmony  of  new 
conclusions  or  principles  under  examination  with 
established  ethical  laws,  the  evidence  of  ideal 
meaning  supplied  by  work  accomplished  in  individ- 
ual souls,  in  the  life  of  society,  its  organic  evolution, 
or  its  recorded  history  —  facts  and  inferences  like 
these  will  supplement  the  more  direct  and  immedi- 
ate judgments  of  value  in  the  establishment  of 
reliable  standards  of  ideal  truth. 

Tested  in  these  various  ways,  all  the  several 
methods  being  jointly  used,  faith  attains  its  maxi- 
mum of  rational  foundation.  Knowledge  in  the 
complete  sense  it  cannot  be,  although  it  contains 
elements  of  knowing.  Nor  is  it  allowable  to  rank 
its  deliverances  equivalent  to  the  regularly  formed 
and  fully  attested  conclusions  of  pure  theoretical 
intelligence.  Nevertheless  its  testimony  is  of 
moment.  If  the  position  of  an  ideal  principle  in 
the  scale  of  values  is  supreme,  if  it  represents  one 


286      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

of  those  chiefest  aspirations  of  the  human  spirit 
which  at  one  and  the  same  time  possess  the  greatest 
intrinsic  significance  and  agree  with  the  analytic 
examination  of  the  spiritual  functions,  then  faith 
rises,  and  rises  legitimately,  to  a  high  level  of 
confident  assent.  And  short  of  this,  if  a  principle 
stands  high  according  to  the  criteria  of  ideal  worth, 
if  moreover  it  is  congruous  with  the  results  of 
theoretical  thought,  in  so  far  forth  it  has  an  evi- 
dential meaning  which  deserves  consideration  and 
respect.  When,  on  the  contrary,  one  or  other  of 
these  elements  in  the  groundwork  of  faith  is  absent 
or  imperfect,  the  degree  of  legitimate  assurance  is 
diminished,  although  the  presence  of  some  in  a 
perfect  form  may  in  measure  compensate  for  the 
partial  failure  of  the  rest. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  CLOSE  OF   TRANSITIONAL  ERAS 

The  thesis  which  is  implied  in  the  title  of  this 
chapter  will  not  be  acceptable  to  the  advocates  of 
negative  views.  In  their  judgment  it  conceals  a 
fallacy,  or  at  least  it  is  open  to  suspicion  pointing 
in  the  direction  of  an  unwarrantable  assumption. 
According  to  the  sceptic's  creed,  if  he  may  be  said 
to  have  a  creed,  the  critical  elements  in  thought 
which  constitute  the  motive  forces  in  eras  of  transi- 
tion never  find  their  term.  Their  influence,  like 
their  existence,  is  perennial.  Periods  of  construc- 
tive thinking,  on  the  other  hand,  the  eras  in  which 
man,  blinded  by  his  ignorance  or  led  on  by  his 
inborn  tendency  to  seek  for  final  explanations  of 
the  world,  builds  up  great  systems  of  belief,  are 
the  less  normal  stages  of  intellectual  development, 
and  positive  conclusions,  not  destructive  views,  the 
factors  which  hinder  the  progress  of  opinion. 

By  the  extremists  these  conclusions  are  applied 
to  the  method  of  thought  as  well  as  to  its  content. 
Not  merely  the  results  of  positive  speculation,  but 

287 


288      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

the  spirit  which  animates  it,  and  the  mode  of  its 
exercise,  must  be  rejected,  if  the  mind  is  to  gain 
its  normal  poise.  Metaphysical  systems  and  theo- 
logical dogmas  are  cumbrous  growths  which  need 
once  for  all  to  be  cleared  away,  in  order  that 
thought  may  give  itself  to  the  work  which  modern 
progress  has  shown  to  be  suited  to  its  capacity. 
These  unhealthy  products  of  the  theoretical  intellect 
destroyed,  the  oppressive  forms  of  government  to 
which  they  have  given  power,  and  the  selfish 
principles  of  conduct  which  in  the  past  have  been 
associated  with  them,  will  also  disappear.  No 
longer  engrossed  in  vain  attempts  to  solve  the  prob- 
lems of  the  world  beyond,  men  will  have  strength 
to  carry  forward  the  investigation  of  the  world 
in  which  their  joresent  lot  is  cast.  When  belief  in 
God  has  been  broken  down  by  the  proof  that  there 
is  no  warrant  in  reason  for  assuming  his  existence, 
kings  will  abandon  their  claim  to  rule  by  virtue 
of  a  divine  commission  and  nobles  cease  to  sup- 
port aristocratic  institutions  by  alliances  with 
the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy.  The  disintegration  of 
dogmatic  beliefs  and  political  institutions  of  the 
absolute  type  will  hasten  the  disappearance  of  op- 
pressive ethical  forms;  class  distinctions  will  be 
recognized  for  what  they  are,  incidental  results  of 
early  social  development  surviving  in  the  modern 


THE   CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    289 

state,  not  God-appointed  lines  of  cleavage  between 
man  and  man ;  the  practice  of  altruism  will  in- 
crease with  the  sense  of  human  equality ;  a  more 
equitable  distribution  of  the  goods  of  life  will  be 
promoted  by  the  recognition  of  the  inherent  worth 
of  man  apart  from  the  circumstances  of  birth  and 
station ;  abandoning  the  ethics  based  on  an  attempt 
to  please  a  far-off  Deity,  mankind  will  find  its  true 
vocation  in  adjusting  conduct  to  the  conditions  of 
its  earthly  environment,  and  the  individual  spir- 
itual enlargement  in  furthering  the  welfare  of  his 
fellows. 

A  large  part  of  later  modern  thought  betrays 
the  influence  of  this  vision  of  destruction.  In 
order  to  the  realization  of  their  dream,  our  agnos- 
tics rightly  judge  that  there  will  be  need  for  a  long 
continuance  of  negative  reflection.  The  institu- 
tions of  the  past  and  the  "  traditions  "  on  which 
they  are  founded  cannot  be  broken  down  by  the 
effort  of  a  day,  or  even  by  the  active  work  of  a  few 
generations  of  critical  thinkers.  Still  less  is  it 
possible  without  prolonged  exertion  to  root  out 
of  the  popular  consciousness  the  principles  which 
have  come  down  to  it  by  the  inheritance  of  race 
and  stock  and  nation,  of  political  and  social  ten- 
dency, of  ethical  and  religious  spirit.  If,  finally, 
the  systems  of   thought  and   life   thus  to  be  dis- 


290      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

carded  are  to  have  no  successors,  if  their  disappear- 
ance is  to  leave  their  places  void,  except  in  so  far 
as  they  are  filled  by  views  which  relate  to  the 
present  and  the  phenomenal  world  alone,  the 
sceptical  mood  must  needs  become  the  dominant 
habit  of  mankind.  Provided  the  agnostic  theory 
of  things  be  true,  doubt  is  in  sober  earnest  the 
normal  condition  of  intelligence.  At  least  until 
men  shall  have  lost  their  primitive  instinct  to  medi- 
tate on  the  questions  which  concern  them  most, 
the  only  healthy  mind  is  that  which  functions 
by  denial. 

It  commonly  escapes  the  notice  of  the  sceptic 
that  adhesion  to  this  position  brings  him  into 
touch  with  the  class  of  thinkers  from  which  in 
principle  he  intends  to  differ.  For  it  is  evident 
that  there  is  little  to  choose  between  the  convinced 
doubter  and  the  dogmatist  of  the  usual  positive 
type.  The  former  contends  that  thought  at  last 
has  ended,  because  the  attempt  to  think  has  been 
shown  entirely  vain ;  the  latter  holds  that  its  task 
is  finished,  because,  in  all  essential  principles,  if  not 
in  complete  detail,  the  system  which  he  advocates 
is  fixed  and  final  truth.  The  one,  as  the  other,  is 
confident  that  his  conclusions  will  stand  the  test  of 
time  —  or,  rather,  he  is  sure  that  they  need  no 
further  testing,  hence  that  there  will  be  none,  and 


THE   CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    291 

that  for  the  future  the  miud  will  be  free  to  devote 
its  powers  to  fields  of  inquiry  in  which  real  work 
remains  to  be  accomplished. 

I  have  said  that  between  these  two  contrasted 
types  of  opinion  there  is  but  little  difference.  The 
remark  should  be  amended  by  a  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  in  the  matter  of  consistency  the  dogmatist 
enjoys  a  decided  advantage.  Thinkers  who  come 
forward  to  commend  their  theories  of  the  world 
and  life  do  it  with  a  better  grace  when  the  views 
which  they  have  to  offer  include  a  considerable 
number  of  affirmative  conclusions.  This  is  espe- 
cially true  of  the  negative  and  positive  forms  of 
speculation  which  mark  the  present  age,  for  the 
doctrine  of  agnostic  absolutism  as  now  accepted 
differs  widely  from  the  despair  of  knowledge  which 
has  been  shown  to  be  a  normal  characteristic  of  eras 
of  thought  transition.1  The  logical  corollary  of  ag- 
nostic reasoning  would  appear  to  be  a  Pyrrhonian 
distrust  of  its  own  results  as  well  as  doubt  or 
denial  with  reference  to  the  principles  which  are 
advocated  by  the  representatives  of  other  schools 
of  thought.  But  this  is  a  position  which  is  seldom 
reached  by  the  negative  thinkers  of  the  present 
day.     In  the  case  of  the  great  majority  their  atti- 

1  Cf.  chap.  I.,  pp.  1-6,  7  ff.;  chap.  II.,  pp.  74-80;  chap.  III., 
pp.  120-122. 


292      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

tude  is  just  the  opposite.  So  certain  are  they  of 
the  exclusive  validity  of  the  type  of  thinking  which 
to  them  seems  true,  that  they  are  often  led  to 
question  even  the  sincerity  of  those  who  defend 
the  credibility  of  constructive  forms  of  reflection, 
not  to  say  the  positive  outcome  of  constructive 
thought.1  Thus  certitude  and  professed  ignorance 
jostle  each  other  in  the  same  argument.  In  sup- 
port of  new  theories  for  which  a  favorable  reception 
is  desired,  the  perplexities  of  an  era  of  change  from 
one  stage  of  culture  to  another  are  heralded  as  the 
decisive  outcome,  destined  to  be  permanent,  of  the 
entire  course  of  human  thinking. 

Nevertheless,  periods  of  hesitant  or  negative  re- 
flection do  come  to  a  close.2  This  is  the  witness  of 
history  in  regard  to  the  various  eras  of  transition 
which  have  preceded  the  present  age,  and,  quite 
apart  from  the  indications  already  manifested  of 
recovery  from  recent  sceptical  thinking,  there  is 
sufficient  reason  for  believing  that  the  time  in 
which  we  live  will  follow  the  general  law.  "  To- 
day's fear  will  assuredly  pass  away," 3  wrote  James 
Martineau  at  a  date  when  the  beginnings  of 
reaction  which  in   later   years   have   cheered   the 

1  Cf.,  e.g.,  chap.  VI.,  pp.  263-265,  and  footnotes. 
3  Cf.  chap.  I,  pp.  28-44. 

8  Letter  to  B.  B.  Wiley,  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  LXXXVL, 
p.  491. 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    293 

hearts  of  constructive  thinkers  were  not  yet  appar- 
ent ;  and  such  courageous  prophecy  was  warranted 
by  the  nature  of  negative  movements  in  general  as 
well  as  by  the  writer's  discriminating  study  of  the 
forces  at  work  in  the  production  of  the  special 
crisis  to  which  his  words  referred.  For  negation, 
much  more  continued  dubiety,  is  an  abnormal,  not 
a  healthy  form  of  intellectual  development.  It  is 
occasional,  or  it  should  be,  and  not  permanent. 
It  comes  as  a  recoil  from  systems  which  have  out- 
lived their  power,  or  amid  the  confusion  attending 
new  discoveries  which  cannot  be  accommodated 
under  the  traditional  rubrics.  It  is  an  evidence  of 
friction  in  the  working  of  the  mental  machine,  a 
symptom  of  disorder  in  the  organism  of  the  mind, 
which  finds  itself  unable  to  accomplish  its  task, 
and  so  halts  baffled,  not  knowing  whether  to  give 
up  its  efforts  or  to  gird  itself  for  fresh  endeavor. 
Therefore  the  application  of  the  law  of  transition 
to  the  phases  of  its  own  development  is  grounded 
in  the  nature  of  the  case  ;  and  the  progress  of  our 
inquiry  confirms  the  conclusion  which  was  reached 
toward  the  close  of  the  opening  survey  :  The  laws 
of  growth  and  decay  control  the  course  of  negative 
as  well  as  of  positive  opinion.  Eras  of  transition 
in  thought  must  themselves  pass  away.1 

1  Chap.  I.,  pp.  28-29. 


294      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

Moreover,  when  transitional  eras  are  about  to 
end,  characteristic  phenomena  appear  which  fore- 
tell their  closing.  The  stage  of  confident  reliance 
on  destructive  thinking  gives  way  to  dissatisfaction 
with  negative  principles  as  a  basis  either  for  theory 
or  for  life.  The  belief  that  no  better  answers  are 
attainable  to  the  fundamental  questions  than  those 
which  from  time  to  time  have  been  propounded  by 
the  master-thinkers  occasions  the  attempts  of  the 
eclectic  school  to  meet  the  need  for  convictions  of 
some  sort  by  means  of  a  combination  of  principles 
selected  from  the  various  classical  systems.  Concern 
for  the  foundations  of  life  and  conduct  mingles  with 
despair  of  theoretical  reflection,  until  appeal  is  taken 
from  reason  to  faith.  In  a  word,  there  is  felt  lack, 
followed  by  efforts  to  supply  it,  which  still  do  not 
break  the  circle  of  doubt  and  hesitation  by  which 
the  deeper  thinking  of  the  age  has  been  long 
hemmed  in.1 

For  however  welcome  these  beginnings  of  a 
return  to  healthier  modes  of  thought  may  be,  and 
whatever  elements  of  value  they  may  contain,  or 
even,  as  we  have  seen,  factors  of  permanent 
significance,  they  are  not  of  themselves  sufficient 
to  complete  the  work  which  is  demanded  of  the 
mind.     If   the   matter   may   so   be  phrased,  they 

1  Chap.  I.,  pp.  29  ff. 


THE   CLOSE  OF  TRANSITIONAL   ERAS    295 

belong  still  in  the  era  of  confusion;  and  though 
one  of  them  at  least,  the  appeal  to  faith,  lays 
stress  on  principles  destined  to  enter  into  the  con- 
struction of  the  new  age,  the  impulse  which  is 
needed  to  carry  thought  across  the  dividing-line 
does  not  reside  in  them  alone.1 

The  promise  of  this  more  effective  influence  is 
given  in  the  renewal  of  efforts  to  think  things 
through  to  the  end.  Often  these  begin  in  a  tenta- 
tive and  halting  fashion :  as  attempts  to  show  that 
the  theories  which  have  wrought  havoc  with  tradi- 
tional beliefs  are  not  so  destructive  of  accepted 
views  as  it  has  been  supposed ;  as  claims  that  later 
discoveries  include  fresh  evidence  in  support  of 
accepted  principles,  fit  at  least  in  part  to  replace 
the  arguments  which  have  been  broken  down. 
Or,  on  the  other  hand,  they  may  take  the  form  of 
brilliant  generalizations  which  force  the  old  and 
new  into  premature  association.  But  the  impor- 
tant matter  is  not  their  imperfection,  but  the  fact 
that  they  begin  at  all.  For  their  appearance  shows 
that  the  minds  of  individuals  and  the  spirit  of  the 
age  are  again  addressing  themselves  to  their  proper 
task.  It  proves  that  courage  has  been  found  once 
more  to  face  the  inevitable  problems.  Above  all, 
the  endeavor  to  compass  the  overthrow  of  nega- 

1  Cf.  chap.  VI.,  in  particular  its  closing  discussions. 


296      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

tive  movements  by  means  of  reasoned  thinking 
implies  a  recognition,  even  though  at  first  it  be  a 
dim  one,  of  the  fundamental  truth,  that  without 
the  work  of  thought  itself  it  is  impossible  to 
adjust  the  conflict  between  the  systems  of  the  past 
and  the  knowledge  of  the  later  time. 

Premising,  therefore,  the  necessity  for  intellectual 
synthesis  in  the  transition  from  an  age  of  negation 
to  an  era  of  positive  opinion,  it  becomes  important 
to  note  that  there  are  several  ways  in  which  the 
process  of  reconstruction  may  be  essayed.  On  the 
threshold  of  the  inquiry  a  view  presents  itself 
which  reduces  to  a  minimum  the  amount  of  new 
truth  to  be  appropriated,  on  the  ground  that  the 
most  needed  thing  of  all  is  a  return  to  the  doc- 
trines which  were  held  in  honor  before  the  period 
of  doubt  began.  This  form  of  opinion  is  a  familiar 
phenomenon  in  the  history  of  culture.  Nowadays 
it  is  common  to  believe  that  it  is  confined  to  the 
defenders  of  reaction  in  theology.  But  a  little 
deeper  study  will  show  that  it  is  characteristic  of 
the  representatives  of  various  types  of  thought  — 
favored  by  the  conservative  in  philosophy  as  well 
as  by  the  theological  reactionary;  shared  in  the 
field  of  politics  by  the  admirers  of  the  old  re*gime 
and  by  those  who  would  limit  progress  by  strict 
adherence  to  the  established  principles  of  statecraft 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    297 

rather  than  loyally  develop  them  to  meet  the  con- 
ditions of  a  later  age ;  in  science  even,  as  we  are 
told  by  the  scientists  themselves,  appearing  ever 
and  anon  to  delay  the  acceptance  of  new  discover- 
ies, although  it  might  have  been  antecedently 
supposed  that  scientific  thinkers  would  prove 
peculiarly  unresponsive  to  obscurantist  impulses. 
The  value  of  the  conservative  spirit  it  is  more 
difficult  to  estimate.  Time  was  when  it  gained  the 
plaudits  of  the  world,  enjoyed  so  great  a  suprem- 
acy, in  fact,  that  the  innovator  developed  his 
theories  at  the  risk  of  pains  and  penalties  decreed 
by  those  in  authority  for  the  punishment  of  dis- 
sidents and  sectaries.  It  was  perilous  to  dig 
about  the  foundations  of  traditional  religious  in- 
stitutions, not  only  in  West  Europe  toward  the 
close  of  the  Papal  domination,  but  even  in  ancient 
Athens,  as  Socrates  found  to  his  cost,  not  now  to 
speak  of  the  long  roll  of  Christian  martyrs  whose 
blood  was  exacted  by  an  expiring  paganism  as  the 
price  of  their  faith.  It  was  not  only  science  that, 
in  the  persons  of  its  leaders,  was  forced  in  early 
modern  times  to  choose  between  solemn  recanta- 
tion and  a  hideous  death ;  but  the  chiefs  of  a  de- 
feated political  party,  instead  of  taking  their 
comfortable  seats  on  the  front  opposition  bench, 
were  liable  to  make  holiday  for  the  mob  on  their 


298      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

way  to  execution.  Of  late,  however,  the  principle 
of  authority  has  come  down  in  the  world.  In  the 
great  majority  of  instances,  the  attempt  to  secure 
a  judicial  process  against  a  heretic  defeats  its  own 
object,  since  at  one  and  the  same  time  it  serves  to 
make  his  heresy  more  widely  known  and  to  pre- 
possess in  its  favor  the  minds  of  those  who  hold 
that  error  can  be  dispelled  alone  by  the  establish- 
ment of  truth.  Remnants  of  the  older  doctrine 
linger  on,  indeed,  even  in  the  most  highly  civil- 
ized communities.  Our  physicians  are  required 
(and  for  the  most  part  rightly)  to  heal  our  bodies  in 
accordance  with  the  tenets  of  a  regular  or  of  some 
irregular  school,  although  our  clergy  are  generally 
permitted  to  point  our  souls  toward  heaven,  and  to 
lead  them  thitherward,  each  in  his  own  particular 
way.  But  taking  it  by  and  large,  the  verdict  of 
modern  culture  bears  as  decidedly  against  the  prin- 
ciple of  authority,  especially  against  the  coercive 
exercise  of  authoritative  power,  as  the  opinion  of 
former  ages  tended  to  support  them. 

Nevertheless  it  may  be  queried  —  though  the  sug- 
gestion exposes  the  questioner  to  scorn  —  whether 
such  conclusions  are  altogether  just.  Personally, 
at  least,  the  conservative  is  likely  to  be  endowed 
with  a  number  of  admirable  qualities.  He  may  be 
narrow,  but  if  he  really  thinks  at  all  he  must  have 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    299 

courage,  and  courage  lies  at  the  foundation  of  char- 
acter in  the  scholar  as  well  as  in  the  man  of  active 
life.  He  may  stand  against  the  world  for  good, 
or  he  may  block  the  path  of  progress  by  his  will ; 
but  provided  only  that  he  battles  in  the  open, 
without  recourse  to  the  tricks  of  intellectual  fence, 
you  will  find  in  him  a  sturdiness  of  disposition,  a 
firmness  of  conviction,  a  readiness  for  sacrifice  in 
behalf  of  a  worthy  cause,  a  resolute  purpose  to 
maintain  the  conflict  though  all  around  him  fail, 
which,  if  these  traits  were  but  combined  with  the 
open  mind  and  the  forward  glance,  would  make 
him  a  reformer  rather  than  the  opponent  of 
change. 

Conservatism  has  its  uses  also,  and  the  conserva- 
tive still  a  mission  in  the  world.  The  case  is  often 
dismissed  with  the  remark  that  at  best  he  is  no 
more  than  a  brake  on  the  machine,  that  he  saves 
the  position  on  occasion  only  because  he  holds 
back  so  hard  that  he  prevents  less  cautious  souls 
from  rushing  on  disaster.  It  is  forgotten,  in  the 
politeness  of  the  jibe,  that  this  description  of  the 
conservative's  office  assigns  to  him  the  honorable 
task  of  safeguarding  things  of  fundamental  worth 
until  rasher  minds  return  from  their  vagaries  to 
more  sober  occupation  with  the  questions  of  the 
ages.     Is  it  small  honor  to  be  a  defender  of  the 


300      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

faith  in  times  when  denials  of  ethical  and  spiritual 
truth  form  the  current  coin  of  thought  ?  Does  he 
do  little  service  for  his  nation  who  contends  for  the 
essential  principles  of  moderate  government  when 
destruction  walks  abroad,  and  the  mob  is  glorifying 
as  reason's  goddess  a  harlot  dressed  in  liberty's 
garb  ?  Owes  the  world  no  debt  of  gratitude  to 
those  temperate  thinkers  who,  in  the  first  flush 
of  some  great  discovery,  stand  for  a  reasonable 
patience  in  the  endeavor  to  estimate  its  bearings 
on  the  problems  of  thought  and  conduct  ?  Con- 
servatism is  marred  by  faults,  and  they  are  grave 
ones ;  at  least  it  should  be  granted  the  qualities  to 
which  it  may  rightfully  lay  claim. 

The  defence,  however,  avails  conservatism  little 
in  relation  to  the  question  which  here  presses  for 
an  answer.  The  movement  is  no  doubt  of  value 
in  that  it  protects  principles  and  institutions  of 
permanent  importance  against  the  dangers  which 
arise  from  sceptical  attacks.  By  virtue  of  its  con- 
cern for  established  truth,  it  may  also  bring  into 
the  focus  of  attention  views  which  are  fitted  to 
become  points  of  departure  for  reconstructive  work. 
But  in  and  of  itself,  it  is  powerless  to  solve  the 
problems  of  the  age,  or  even  to  point  out  the  way 
by  which  the  positive  reflection  of  the  future  may 
achieve  success.     For  the  method  of  reaction  is  a 


THE   CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    301 

method  of  limitation  and  restriction,  not  of  hope- 
ful progress.  Its  advocates  aim  to  restore  the  old 
things  as  they  were,  instead  of  seeking  to  add  to 
the  former  possessions  of  the  mind  the  gain  of  the 
new.  Least  of  all  will  they  advance  with  steadfast 
coinage  to  adapt  their  thinking  to  the  altered  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time.  From  the  outset,  there- 
fore, their  efforts  are  doomed  to  failure,  since  they 
mistake  the  real  conditions  of  the  problem.  Assum- 
ing that  the  old  conclusions  represented  ultimate 
truth,  they  hold  the  new  doctrines  of  necessity 
erroneous  in  so  far  as  they  depart  from  the  prin- 
ciples formerly  in  control  of  thought;  and  they 
argue,  further,  that  the  liberal  movements  in  every 
case  proceed  from  other  causes,  if  not  from  other 
motives,  than  a  reasonable  interpretation  of  the 
facts  involved.  But  the  way  to  overcome  negation 
is  by  the  enlargement  and  development  of  opinion 
rather  than  by  the  attempt  to  restore  things  to 
their  former  state.  As  Zeller,  the  veteran  his- 
torian of  Greek  philosophy,  remarks  in  his  discus- 
sion of  the  death  of  Socrates,1  the  good  old  times 
can  never  be  brought  back  just  as  they  were  before. 
The  endeavor  exactly  to  reproduce  them  is  only  a 
misguided  venture.     The  man,  the  institution,  the 

i  Outlines  of  Greek  Philosophy  (Eng.  trans.),  §34;  Socrates  and 
the  Socratic  Schools  (Eng.  trans.),  pp.  213  ff. 


302      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

people,  the  age,  that  centres  all  its  hopes  on  efforts 
at  their  renewal  incurs  the  heaviest  penalty  which 
is  visited  on  intellectual  fault.  It  refuses  to  wel- 
come light,  so  it  is  self-condemned  to  error. 

Illustrations  of  the  burden  under  which  reaction 
labors  abound  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Thus 
there  was  a  time  when  the  Papal  church  had  the 
opportunity,  keeping  the  Reformers  within  its  pale, 
by  a  revision  of  doctrine  and  the  purification  of 
morals  to  retain  its  hold  upon  Western  Europe  and 
the  lands  beyond  the  seas.  But  it  knew  not  the 
day  of  its  visitation  and  persisted  in  its  attempt  to 
conserve  its  former  ways.  So  Luther  was  judged 
an  unfrocked  priest ;  the  Council  of  Trent  refused 
to  do  away  with  errors  of  belief  and  gave  false 
doctrine  a  new  claim  upon  the  faithful ;  the  Cath- 
olic Reaction,  further,  in  its  front  the  Jesuit  band, 
reasserted  the  pontifical  authority,  maintained  the 
Inquisition,  in  short  assured  the  continuance  of 
mediaeval  forms  of  faith  and  practice  certain  more 
and  more  to  alienate  the  sympathies  of  the  modern 
mind. 

To  reject  the  method  of  reaction,  however,  does 
not  imply  that  negative  types  of  thought  can 
accomplish  the  needed  work.  For  if  conserva- 
tism fails,  except  perchance  in  its  endeavor  to 
rescue  principles  which  have  shown  themselves  of 


THE   CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    303 

value  in  the  past,  but  which  have  been  brought 
into  peril  in  the  course  of  intellectual  progress, 
denial  finds  its  chief  purpose  in  the  destruction  of 
systems  which  have  definitely  outlived  their  power. 
Once  and  again  already  reference  has  been  made  to 
the  truth  that  mere  negation,  apart  from  the  con- 
structive tendencies  with  which  it  finds  itself  allied, 
is  devoid  of  creative  force.1  And  this  defect,  in- 
hering as  is  manifest  in  its  very  nature,  cleaves 
also  to  particular  movements  which  are  born  of 
the  spirit  of  unrest.  Sterile  in  themselves,  they 
limit,  in  so  far  as  they  gain  acceptance,  the  minds 
in  which  they  find  a  lodgment  and  the  age  which 
takes  from  them  its  intellectual  tone.  Paralyzing 
thought,  they  yield  no  help  for  action,  and  so  in  a 
double  sense  are  unfitted  to  inspire  men  for  "  deeds 
of  high  emprise."  In  the  crisis  of  transition  from 
mediaeval  to  modern  culture,  the  Roman  church, 
as  has  just  been  urged,  proved  itself  incapable 
of  providing  spiritual  guidance  for  the  world  of 
Western  Europe.  But  the  real  leadership,  it  must 
be  added,  the  impulse  which  effected  the  enfran- 
chisement and  the  renewal  of  the  European  mind, 
came  not  from  those  in  whom  the  religious  instinct 
was  dead  or  dormant.  The  cultured  paganism  of 
North  Italy  produced  no  watchword  for  the  time, 

i  Cf.  chap.  III.,  pp.  10 1-105. 


304      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

sent  forth  no  great  leader,  although  it  stood  for 
intellectual  liberty  and  anticipated  principles  which 
have  played  a  foremost  part  in  later  thinking. 
Among  the  humanists  of  Germany  there  were 
grave  defections  from  their  alliance  with  the 
movement  of  reform,  when  they  realized  the 
quality  of  the  reforming  spirit  and  the  scope  of  its 
implications.  It  was  reserved  for  a  Saxon  professor- 
priest,  in  whose  soul,  alike  robust  and  sensitive, 
faith  still  throve  rather  than  still  lingered,  to  lay 
the  foundations  of  the  new  spiritual  life.  And  his- 
tory shows  the  facts  the  same  in  other  fields  as  well. 
So,  for  instance,  if  the  vicissitudes  through  which 
France  was  called  to  pass  in  the  first  half  of  the  last 
century  proved  the  old  monarchy  a  failure  after 
the  Revolution,  as  it  had  been  before  the  great 
upheaval  first  drove  its  representatives  from  the 
throne,  at  least  the  Bourbon  rule  was  a  hopeful 
form  of  government  compared  with  the  disorders 
which  had  followed  the  application  of  the  princi- 
ples inculcated  by  Voltaire,  the  Encyclopaedists,  or 
Rousseau. 

Neither  conservative  reaction,  therefore,  nor  the 
method  of  doubt  or  denial  is  fitted  to  lead  thought 
on  to  a  new  constructive  age.  Nor  is  it  possible  to 
bring  about  the  desired  result  by  means  of  a  simple 
combination    of   opposing    principles,   lopping   off 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS     305 

here  and  adding  or  joining  there,  until  an  equation 
is  reached  which  includes  the  new  truth  with  the 
old  and  so  cannot  be  called  in  question  by  any  of 
the  contending  parties.  For  the  nature  of  intelli- 
gence, and  the  character  of  its  product,  are  other 
than  the  analogy  implies.  In  so  far  as  it  has  a 
content,  thought  is  never  of  the  purely  mathe- 
matical type,  and  cannot  be  until  the  world  shall 
have  been  investigated  to  its  remotest  bounds. 
Meanwhile,  the  simple  rearrangements  and  equa- 
tions of  the  mediators  remain  only  less  hopeless 
than  the  chop-logic  of  the  dogmaticians,  whose 
vision  ends  with  the  limits  of  their  own  systems. 
Nor  will  the  employment  of  a  different  figure  help 
out  the  argument.  The  old  intellectual  edifice,  it 
is  often  said,  stands  in  need  of  restoration;  the 
evident  way  to  effect  the  needed  changes  will  be 
to  introduce  new  materials,  or  in  the  extreme  case 
to  base  it  on  new  foundations  recognized  by  all  as 
sound.  But  the  constructions  of  the  mind  are  not 
mere  products  of  mechanical  craftsmanship.  There- 
fore you  cannot  here  cut  out  a  weakened  board  and 
there  replace  a  foundation  stone,  as  it  is  possible  to 
make  over  a  dwelling  or  a  church.  There  is  rather 
a  large  element  of  truth  in  the  conclusion,  favored 
in  recent  times  by  the  adherents  of  many  different 
schools,  which  holds  that  thought  is  an  organic 


306      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

growth.  It  matures  slowly  and  in  quiet.  It  can- 
not be  forced,  neither  can  its  development  be 
thwarted.  As  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  church 
historians  in  America1  once  remarked  concerning; 
civilization  at  large,  it  undergoes  no  revolutions  for 
which  the  way  has  not  been  first  prepared.  So, 
also,  it  is  impossible  to  restore  it  by  patchwork  or 
any  kind  of  artificial  repairs. 

Thus  there  remains  but  one  way  in  which  eras  of 
transition  in  thinking  can  be  brought  to  a  close  and 
eras  of  new  constructive  activity  begun.  In  gen- 
eral, the  process  may  be  described  as  a  process  of 
synthetic  development,  in  which  description  both  of 
the  terms  employed  have  an  emphatic  significance. 
In  the  first  place,  the  movement  of  thought  from 
hesitant  negation  to  active  construction  involves 
synthesis  in  the  sense  of  correlation  rather  than  of 
local  combination.  It  does  not  denote  a  mere  jux- 
taposition of  elements  or  their  mechanical  union, 
which  in  application  to  the  matter  in  hand  would 
amount  to  little  more  than  the  method  of  mathemati- 
cal rearrangement  that  has  just  been  shown  falla- 
cious, but  that  living  articulation  of  part  with 
part,  —  here  the  principles  of  the  older  thinking 
which  merit  preservation  and  the  results  of  the 
younger  inquiry  which  are  grounded  in  fact  and 

1  The  late  Professor  Philip  Schaff. 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    307 

reason,  —  that  establishment  of  relations  which  was 
undertaken  by  antiquity,  for  the  most  part,  as  the 
great  thinkers  mused  on  the  beauty  of  the  world  or 
the  nature  of  intelligence,  but  which  the  later  mod- 
ern mind  has  more  often  approached  along  the  line 
of  its  biological  and  sociological  investigations. 
Such  synthetic  correlation  is  the  distinctive  char- 
acteristic of  all  thinking  in  its  higher  reaches. 
But  never  is  it  more  necessary  than  in  the  transi- 
tion from  doubt  to  positive  reconstruction.  The 
problem  then  is  the  most  serious  which  can  confront 
the  mind.  Face  to  face  with  a  mass  of  elements, 
more  or  less  discordant,  which  must  be  fused  into 
a  working-theory  capable  of  supporting,  at  the 
same  time  that  it  inspires,  the  culture  of  a  new  age, 
thought  is  put  to  the  test  of  proving  its  own  value 
by  its  success  in  accomplishing  the  crucial  task. 
Anything  less  than  the  exercise  of  all  its  powers 
will  lead  it  to  defeat.  Nothing  can  take  the 
place  of  thoroughgoing  reflection,  of  that  thinking 
things  through  to  the  end  which  has  above  been 
noted  as  containing  in  itself  the  promise  of  intel- 
lectual recovery;1  and  this  means  the  rational 
organic  correlation,  following  on  analysis  of  the 
given  data,  in  which  essentially  the  synthetic 
process  consists. 

1  Cf.  above,  pp.  295-29G. 


308      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  synthesis  of  this  kind 
implies  development.  The  rational  combination  of 
principles  by  means  of  correlating  thought  based 
upon  a  thorough  discussion  of  all  the  elements  of  the 
problem  —  how  can  such  a  procedure  fail  to  draw 
out  the  inner  meaning  of  the  ideas  and  principles 
involved,  and  to  build  them  up  into  higher  unities  ? 
The  same  conclusion  follows  from  a  consideration 
of  the  conditions  under  which  the  work  goes  on. 
The  change  from  doubt  to  renewed  confidence  in  the 
powers  of  the  mind  toward  the  close  of  a  transitional 
age  is  in  no  respect  a  more  complete  break  with 
the  past  than  the  change  from  confidence  to  doubt 
by  which  the  age  was  ushered  in.1  Still  less  than 
this  does  it  imply  an  entire  abandonment  of  the 
earlier  culture.  The  one  phase  of  thought  takes 
its  origin  in  opposition  to  negation,  as  the  other  in 
revolt  against  affirmative  dogma.  But  neither  is 
free  from  the  influence  of  that  which  has  gone  be- 
fore ;  while  those  thinkers,  in  particular,  who  first 
essay  the  work  of  reconstruction  tend,  often  without 
conscious  purpose,  to  adopt  a  mediating  attitude, 
joining  in  one  and  the  same  system  survivals  of 
traditional  views,  constructive  applications  of  the 
principles  by  which  the  older  doctrines  have  been 
challenged,  and  anticipations  of  the  fully  developed 

1  Cf.  chap.  II.,  pp.  56-59. 


THE  CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL   ERAS    309 

positions  of  the  age  about  to  come.1  As  in  the 
evolution  of  organic  beings,  so  also  in  the  develop- 
ment of  thought :  nowhere  is  entire  discontinuity  the 
rule.  The  world-old  questions  press  for  answers  so 
soon  as  the  intellect  resumes  its  wonted  activity. 
The  forms  in  which  they  have  been  of  old  pro- 
pounded and  the  ways  in  which  attempt  has  been 
made  to  frame  replies,  these,  outliving  the  stress  of 
doubt  and  negative  reflection,  become  parts  of  the 
mental  heritage  which  is  to  be  united  with  the  dis- 
coveries of  the  later  time.  The  utilization  of  the 
possessions  of  the  mind  —  handed  down  or  just  ac- 
quired —  will  be  perfect  in  the  measure  that  their 
abiding  significance  is  educed,  that  principles  pre- 
cisely ascertained  are  brought  into  rational  correla- 
tion, that  the  body  of  resultant  truth  is  organically 
connected  with  human  knowledge  as  previously  con- 
stituted—  in  a  word,  in  so  far  as  development  in 
the  intellectual  sense  is  successfully  carried  out. 

In  consequence  of  this  developmental  synthesis, 
the  new  age  by  degrees  arrives  at  a  solution  of 
the  difficulties  which  have  beset  the  spirit  of  the 
time.  The  new  system  of  thought,  however,  is  never 
final,  since  no  one  era,  like  no  single  individual, 
is  ever  in  a  position  to  give  a  completed  answer 

1  Socrates  was  one  of  the  great  classical  examples  of  this 
tendency. 


310      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

to  all  the  questions  of  the  world  and  life.  It  is  not 
even  true  that  the  positive  results  of  the  newer 
thinking  amount  in  every  case  to  an  intellectual  ad- 
vance. The  identity  of  development  and  progress 
is  a  favorite  assumption,  but  one  which  is  as  little 
justified  in  the  mental  as  it  is  in  the  physical  world. 
Fortunately,  the  several  eras  of  transition  hitherto 
have  for  the  most  part  been  marked  by  thought 
changes  which  have  also  been  additions  to  the  re- 
sources of  the  mind.  But  this  has  not  been  the 
uniform  result,  nor  can  the  happy  outcome  be  ex- 
pected to  repeat  itself  in  future  crises  under  a  uni- 
versal law.  For  the  developmental  process  includes 
the  moment  of  dissolution  as  well  as  the  evolution- 
ary phase  to  which  the  attention  of  the  majority  of 
thinkers  is  commonly  directed  ;  and  growth  itself 
may  be  beneficent  or  evil,  when  it  is  tested  by 
criteria  of  worth  rather  than  by  the  standards  of 
mere  mechanical  accretion.  Because,  moreover,  of 
the  gravity  and  the  complexity  of  the  fundamental 
problems,  thought  is  never  finished,  even  when  it 
has  benefited  by  development  bringing  positive 
gain.  Hence  the  process  of  recovery  from  the 
effects  of  doubt  gives  rise  to  various  partial  phe- 
nomena, which  suggest  conclusions  bearing  on  the 
general  nature  of  the  movement  by  which  the  age 
of  doubt  itself  is  brought  to  a  term. 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL   ERAS    311 

One  typical  form  of  the  constructive  movement 
may  be  described  as  an  extension  of  formulas,  more 
technically  as  an  expansion  of  principles,  or  more 
abstractly  still  as  an  enlargement  of  the  categories 
or  fundamental  conceptions  under  the  guidance  of 
which  thought  has  formerly  proceeded.  The  re- 
sults of  this  phase  of  positive  thinking  consist  in 
adjustments  of  opinion  in  virtue  of  which  the 
meaning  of  a  fact  or  principle  is  preserved,  al- 
though the  literal  reality  of  the  fact  or  the  literal 
truth  of  the  doctrine  is  abandoned  in  obedience  to 
imperative  proof.  A  classical  example  here,  the 
effect  of  the  substitution  of  the  Copernican  for  the 
Ptolemaic  astronomy,  may  be  cited  by  way  of  illus- 
tration, provided  it  be  remembered  from  the  start 
that  the  questions  which  were  raised  by  the  changes 
in  astronomical  theory  related  not  to  theology 
alone,  as  it  is  sometimes  supposed,  but  to  the  entire 
framework  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  doctrine  in 
regard  to  the  order  of  the  world.  For  not  only  the 
Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures,  but  ancient  phi- 
losophy and  science  as  well,  sanctioned  the  popular 
belief  that  the  earth  is  the  centre  of  the  universe, 
and  that  the  heavenly  bodies  have  been  made  for 
man's  convenience,  even  as  they  move  around  his 
earthly  habitation  in  their  encircling  spheres.  It 
was  just  this  general  acceptance  of  the  geocentric 


312      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

system,  in  fact,  which  gave  the  new  heliocentric 
theory  its  revolutionary  force.  The  conclusions  of 
the  latter  fatally  cut  into  the  views  which  had 
hitherto  prevailed  concerning  the  nature  and  the 
arrangement  of  the  material  world.  Therefore 
there  was  reason  for  serious  anxiety  over  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  system  of  spiritual  truth  which 
had  postulated  the  traditional  physical  theory,  and 
had  been  built  upon  it,  would  not  also  vanish,  if 
this  should  prove  untenable. 

"  For  its  unsettling  effects  upon  time-honored 
beliefs  and  mental  habits  the  Darwinian  theory  is 
no  more  to  be  compared  to  the  Copernican  than 
the  invention  of  the  steamboat  to  the  voyages  of 
Columbus,"  1  so  Mr.  Fiske  estimated  the  case  in  his 
Ingersoll  Lecture  at  Harvard  University  a  few 
months  before  his  death.  And  yet  how  nearly  the 
echoes  of  the  controversy  have  died  out  of  later 
thought.  Sometimes  still  we  study  the  movement 
with  a  languid  historical  interest,  or  we  half  con- 
demn, half  marvel  at  the  persecution  of  Galileo  and 
other  martyrs  of  science  for  their  opinions ;  but 
how  few  thinkers  of  the  present  time  realize  what 
a  tremendous  intellectual  and  spiritual  crisis  was 
forced  upon  the  modern  mind  by  the  first  an- 
nouncement of  discoveries  which  have  now  become 

1  Life  Everlasting,  p.  44;  cf.  The  Destiny  of  Man,  pp.  14-17. 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS     313 

part  of  the  common  stock  of  knowledge.  In  par- 
ticular, the  bearing  of  the  new  astronomy  on  ques- 
tions of  religious  faith  has  been  so  far  discounted 
by  the  thought  of  later  times  that  most  of  our 
contemporaries  overlook  the  problems  which  arise 
from  the  fact  of  the  earth's  littleness  and  man's 
insignificance  amid  the  vastness  of  the  universe, 
until  some  critic  or  apologist  points  out  anew  the 
discrepancies  between  the  literal  and  the  figurative 
interpretation  of  principles  which  continue  to  enjoy 
a  wide-spread  acceptance.1 

In  part,  the  change  has  been  brought  about  by 
rejecting  the  scientific  errors  of  the  older  view  of 
the  world,  while  at  the  same  time  the  spiritual 
significance  of  the  ancient  theory  has  been  retained, 
sometimes  even,  in  altered  forms,  the  ideas  for 
which  this  formed  the  basis.  No  civilized  mod- 
erns, except  perchance  a  few  absurd  reactionaries, 
now  refuse  to  accept  the  established  principles  of 
astronomical  science,  or  with  the  late  Brother  Jas- 
per, in  defiance  alike  of  grammar  and  of  reason, 
argue  that  "  the  sun  do  move  "  ;  but  still  men  speak 
of  its  setting  and  its  rising,  as  still  with  the  other 
celestial  lights  it  appears  to  traverse  the  expanse 

1  E.g.,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  "  Man's  Place  in  the  Universe," 
Fortnightly  Review,  March  and  September,  1903,  and  the  discussion 
which  Wallace's  papers  have  called  forth.  Cf.  also,  A.  Sabatier, 
Esquisse  d'une  Philosophie  de  la  Religion  (7th  ed.,  1903),  pp.  318-321. 


314      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN   THOUGHT 

above.  Purists  may  object  to  church  steeples 
pointing  upward,  to  our  speech  of  heaven,  to  teach- 
ing children  of  the  world  beyond  the  skies ;  yet, 
despite  whatever  modicum  of  force  these  objections 
may  contain,  deduction  being  made  moreover  for 
the  touch  of  pedantry  which  here  and  there  mars 
the  thinking  of  the  time,  how  far  we  are  removed 
from  the  anxious  questionings  of  other  ages  which 
these  criticisms  recall  to  mind.  With  Job,  with 
Psalmist,  or  with  Prophet,  we  meditate  of  "  Him 
who  stretcheth  out  the  heavens  like  a  curtain  " 
and  appoints  to  men  their  lot,  deriving  from  the 
thought  of  his  majesty  and  his  providence  the 
spiritual  lessons  which  are  needed  for  our  lives,  and 
not  perplexed,  as  were  our  forefathers  a  few  con- 
turies  ago,  because  the  seer's  vision  of  the  celestial 
confines,  like  the  crystalline  spheres  of  the  older 
speculative  science,  has  been  proved  discordant 
with  astronomical  fact.  Or  we  may  share  in  the 
still  more  splendid  conceptions  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers,  and  realize  that  our  citizenship  is 
from  above,  in  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  which  is 
the  mother  of  us  all,  where  Christ  dwells  on  the 
throne  of  his  glory,  and  whose  builder  and  maker 
is  God  —  the  while  acknowledging  without  ship- 
wreck to  our  faith  the  undeniable  elements  of 
imagery  which  these  thoughts  contain,  confident 


THE   CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    315 

that  we  are  subjects  of  the  celestial  king,  since  we 
have  been  granted  the  right  to  call  ourselves  the 
sons  of  God. 

The  reasonableness  of  this  method  is  grounded, 
as  will  be  seen  below,  in  the  nature  of  the  mental 
processes  involved  in  the  development  of  opinion, 
and  in  the  process  of  development  itself.  If  it 
were  first  and  last  a  phenomenon  of  linguistic 
interpretation  alone,  its  legitimacy  would  be  more 
than  doubtful ;  its  validity  depends  on  its  basis 
in  the  evolution  of  thought.  At  best,  however, 
it  is  a  serious  question  to  what  extent  it  may  be 
legitimately  employed  in  the  solution  of  critical 
problems  and  within  what  limits  its  application 
must  be  confined.  The  doubt  presses  most 
sharply  in  relation  to  the  articles  of  religious 
faith,  although  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  interests 
of  other  types  of  thought  are  also  at  stake. 
Absolute  monarchy  in  England  has  been  replaced 
by  the  constitutional  form ;  but  the  sovereign 
still  uses  the  language  of  personal  rule,  although 
his  ministers  —  themselves  responsible  to  the  rep- 
resentative assembly,  and  ultimately  to  the  nation 
at  large — exercise  most  of  the  functions  of  gov- 
ernment. In  the  United  States  free  trade  is  out 
of  court  for  the  adherents  of  the  dominant  politi- 
cal  faith  —  but  "reciprocity"   will  save  at   once 


316      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

the  trade  of  the  country  and  the  orthodox  party 
creed ;  just  as  "  a  tariff  for  revenue  only "  may 
be  stretched  to  protect  a  number  of  industries 
whose  infancy  prolongs  itself  beyond  all  human 
calculation.  Without  attempting  to  decide  in  any 
particular  case  the  value  of  the  development  which 
has  taken  place,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  adjustment 
through  the  enlargement  of  symbols  may  degen- 
erate into  artificial  verbal  evasion. 

The  difficulty  becomes  most  acute,  however, 
when  the  problem  under  consideration  is  one 
which  concerns  spiritual  principles.  The  inter- 
pretation of  Scripture,  the  acceptance  of  estab- 
lished creeds,  the  performance  of  religious  obliga- 
tions and  official  duties,  "  the  reconciliation  of 
religion  and  science,"  the  defence  of  religious  or 
ethical  principles  —  all  these  have  been  colored 
in  eras  of  transition  by  the  method  of  expan- 
sive adjustment  or  attempted  by  its  aid.  Rarely 
in  any  period  has  this  procedure  been  more  fa- 
vored than  in  the  present.  Nevertheless,  in  the 
course  of  each  special  movement  as  in  the  history 
of  each  age,  a  point  is  finally  reached  at  which 
it  must  be  asked,  Has,  or  has  not,  the  limit  of 
legitimate  interpretative  development  been  over- 
stepped ?  For,  when  this  is  passed,  the  method 
in  essence  becomes   quite  other  than  that  which 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS     317 

has  been  described,  although  on  the  surface  the 
earlier  and  the  later  phases  may  appear  the  same. 
In  the  former,  it  was  in  fact  development  by 
interpretation;  but  there  is  constant  danger  in 
times  of  doubt  that  this  will  pass  over  into 
evisceration  by  interpretation,  if  the  phrase  may 
be  allowed,  with  an  attendant  rejection  of  the 
principles  which  are  believed  to  be  preserved. 
In  the  one  case  there  is  a  broadening  of  formulas 
and  symbols  for  the  same  essential  truth  ;  in  the 
other,  the  truth  represented  is  in  effect  made  void, 
though  its  outward  setting  is  retained. 

The  exact  determination  of  the  point  of  danger 
is  not  an  easy  task.1  In  many  instances,  there  is 
reason  to  fear,  precise  determination  is  excluded 
by  the  nature  of  the  case.  Between  the  demands 
of  punctilious  literalism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
temptations  to  allegorizing  license,  on  the  other, 
there  lies  a  wide  range  of  problems  the  decision 
of  which  must  be  left  to  conscientious  tact.  That 
is  to  say,  they  are  matters  of  opinion.  Alike  as 
they  force  themselves  upon  the  individual  mind, 
or,  claiming  the  collective  labor  of  many  minds 
at  once,  make  their  appeal  to  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  their  solution  will  depend  on  that  nice  blend- 

1  Cf.  chap.  VI.,  pp.  272-276,  for  a  discussion  of  an  analogous 
problem. 


318      TRANSITIONAL  EEAS   IN  THOUGHT 

ing  of  intellectual  insight  and  wisely  considered 
experience  and  delicate  moral  appreciation  which 
constitutes  the  only  safe  resource  when  a  fully 
reasoned  judgment  is  impossible.  The  complete 
and  final  adjustment  will  come  only  in  the  course 
of  intellectual  evolution.  Only  when  the  answers 
to  the  questions  raised  shall  have  been  worked  out 
by  the  activity  of  thought  at  large,  when  this 
proffered  theory  and  that  shall  have  been  tested 
as  well  by  application  to  the  needs  of  life  as  by 
the  criteria  of  critical  analysis,  when  there  shall 
have  resulted  that  balance  of  opinion  which  issues 
from  the  silent  progress  of  thought  in  its  organic 
entirety  —  only  then  will  it  be  possible  to  say 
with  certainty  what  the  final  judgment  is  to 
be.  Meanwhile  there  is  need  for  candor  and 
discernment,  for  the  freedom  of  the  open  mind, 
for  charitable  judgments  of  fellow-men.  There 
will  be  occasion  for  courage  and  patience,  also, 
and  a  nice  sense  of  intellectual  honor  —  not  now 
to  dwell  on  that  simple  honesty  which,  impera- 
tive as  it  is  in  the  affairs  of  everyday  life,  is  still 
more  painfully  missed  when  it  is  absent  from 
thought  concerning  fundamental  problems.  For 
to  yield  this  sensitiveness  of  mental  habit  means 
to  give  up  the  choicest  of  the  intellectual  virtues. 
Better,  far   better,  to  grope  in  mental  darkness, 


THE   CLOSE  OF  TKANSITIONAL  EKAS    319 

better  to  abandon  any  cherished  conviction,  no 
matter  how  bereft  its  loss  may  leave  the  soul, 
than  to  depart  from  this  central  principle  of 
intellectual  integrity,  which  is  at  the  same  time 
the  condition  of  intellectual  power. 

The  limitation  of  the  method,  like  the  explana- 
tion of  it,  is  fitted  to  throw  light  on  its  nature  and 
its  value.  These  depend,  in  the  first  place,  on  the 
abstract  and  complicated  nature  of  thought  in 
the  special  sense  of  correlating'  consciousness.1 
Because  of  these  characteristics,  the  work  of 
intelligence  is  possible  only  as  the  understand- 
ing makes  use  of  representative  symbols,  which 
serve  as  the  vehicles  or  carriers  of  the  thought- 
activity.  In  the  case  of  civilized  man  these  sym- 
bolic expressions  are  for  the  most  part  words  or 
other  linguistic  forms,  although  symbols  of  other 
kinds  may  also  be  used  for  the  purpose,  and  in 
fact  are  often  so  employed.  The  more  complex 
and  the  more  abstract  the  subjects  which  the 
mind  takes  into  consideration,  the  more  intricate 
the  connection  becomes  between  these  signs  and 
the  thought-processes  which  they  mediate,  and  the 
larger  the    room    which  is    left   for   variation    in 

1  Cf.  J.  Sully,  The  Human  Mind,  vol.  I.,  pp.  388  ff. ;  also,  chap. 
III.,  pp.  107-110,  above,  and  almost  any  of  the  numerous  discus- 
sions of  the  topic  in  psycho  lug  ical  and  philosophical  literature. 


320      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

the  representative  expression  of  one  and  the 
same  underlying  idea  or  principle.  If,  finally, 
the  matters  considered  not  only  involve  the  work 
of  the  theoretical  intellect,  but  engage  the  interest 
of  the  emotional  and  volitional  nature  as  well, 
the  complexity  of  the  symbolic  element  attains 
its  maximum  development.  Such  evidently  is 
the  case  before  us.  Forms  of  political  organiza- 
tion, party  principles,  above  all,  philosophical  con- 
clusions or  theological  doctrines,  cannot  even  be 
discussed  without  the  use  of  representative  expres- 
sions which  are  symbols  many  times  removed 
from  the  concrete  actualities  of  everyday  life 
and  popular  speech.  Absolute  monarchy,  pro- 
tection and  free  trade,  the  existence  of  a  God, 
immortality,  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  — 
merely  to  pronounce  the  words  evinces  their 
highly  abstract  character,  at  the  same  time  that 
it  recalls  the  echoes  of  profound  emotional  experi- 
ence, when  it  does  not  produce  it  anew,  and  revives 
the  influence  of  the  long  course  of  political  or  spir- 
itual history  which  has  given  them  power  over  the 
mind. 

Ideas  and  principles  of  this  kind  cannot  be  re- 
duced to  formulas  either  complete  or  mathemati- 
cally precise.  Their  symbolic  statements,  therefore, 
possess  a  certain  flexibility  which  makes  it  possible 


THE   CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL   ERAS    321 

at  times  to  adjust  them  in  accordance  with  the 
development  of  the  doctrines  for  which  they  stand 
without  making  a  violent  break  with  the  past. 
Or  rather,  the  adaptation  may  be  tacit,  involving 
no  outward  change  at  all.  Thought  progresses 
and  gives  to  time-honored  views  a  new  setting, 
in  part  it  may  even  be  a  new  content,  although 
their  essential  meaning  remains  the  same.  Con- 
crete expressions,  fully  adequate  and  accurate, 
could  not  reflect  the  movement  without  radical 
alteration.  Abstract  representations,  on  the  con- 
trary, just  because  of  their  symbolic  character, 
include  a  margin  of  variability  within  which 
adaptation  without  external  modification  may 
safely  go  on. 

Again  —  and  this  completes  its  groundwork  in 
reason — the  enlargement  of  formulas  is  a  function 
of  thought  in  its  over-individual  manifestations. 
Even  in  the  individual  thinker  the  process  of  ad- 
justment is  often  unaccompanied  by  reflective  pur- 
pose. Much  more  are  the  influence  of  mind  on 
mind,  and  the  collective  movement  of  many  minds 
tending  toward  the  common  goal,  likely  to  be  inde- 
pendent of  a  clear  realization  of  the  work  which  is 
in  process  of  accomplishment.  One  question  or 
another  presses  for  an  answer.  The  perplexity 
of   the   time   must    be   lightened,  now  here,  now 


322      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

there,  unless  a  total  defeat  of  thought  is  to  be 
accepted.  For  this  difficulty  or  that  resulting 
from  the  progress  of  inquiry  a  solution  is  believed 
to  have  been  found,  or  at  least  a  means  of  partial 
relief  discovered.  Often  there  is  little  realization 
of  the  broader  issues,  let  alone  a  thorough  compre- 
hension of  the  task  which  must  be  surmounted  be- 
fore the  age  will  be  in  a  position  to  risk  the  entire 
cessation  of  its  anxious  questioning.  Thus  there 
is  given  no  opportunity  for  unworthy  compro- 
mises, no  chance  to  twist  symbolic  principles  into 
agreement  with  conclusions  which  void  them  of 
all  force.  Thought  is  moving,  but  it  has  not  be- 
come aware  of  the  nature  of  its  own  progress  or 
the  end  toward  which  its  movement  tends.  Sooner 
or  later  a  time  will  come  when  the  results  of  its 
activity  will  emerge  in  conscious  self-knowledge  of 
the  course  it  has  been  pursuing,  but  then,  at  least 
in  substance,  the  process  of  readjustment  will  be 
finished.  At  this  stage  the  general  outcome  of  the 
process  will  reveal  the  limitations,  already  described, 
of  individual  opinion.  But  it  will  also  bring  to  light 
the  deeper  justification  of  the  individual's  thinking 
which  is  supplied  by  its  congruence  with  the  ten- 
dencies of  thought  at  large,  these  in  turn  being 
proved  defensible  by  the  fact  that  they  amount  to  a 
rational,  and  not  a  merely  verbal  change. 


THE   CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL   ERAS     323 

A  second  mode  of  transition  from  negative  to 
positive  thinking  depends  still  more  clearly  than 
the  first  npon  reasoned  synthesis,  and  escapes  the 
moral  peril  to  which  the  first  is  exposed,  although 
it  also  yields  no  complete  solution  for  the  prob- 
lems which  confront  the  spirit  of  the  age.  This 
second  transitional  process  is  that  of  central  adjust- 
ment. In  a  given  thought-crisis,  after  the  issues 
most  provocative  of  confusion  have  been  met  to 
some  sensible  degree,  the  outline  of  the  new  doc- 
trine is  accepted  and  men  turn  their  attention  to 
more  urgent  tasks,  leaving  the  further  questions 
involved  to  be  worked  out  by  scholars  or  the 
general  progress  of  opinion.  The  later  stages  of 
this  form  of  the  synthetic  process  are  often  of  a 
quiet  kind.  The  clamor  of  the  earlier  contro- 
versy was  a  symptom  of  the  agitation  caused  by 
the  difficulties  of  the  time.  The  solution  of  the 
central  problem,  or  even  the  belief  that  in  essence 
it  is  soluble,  goes  far  to  restore  the  mental  equi- 
poise :  the  advocates  of  progress,  now  that  their 
main  contention  has  been  admitted,  cease  to  feel 
impelled  to  militant  activity  in  its  enforcement ; 
the  friends  of  menaced  intellectual  and  spiritual 
interests,  relieved  from  their  anxiety,  are  no  longer 
tempted  to  break  out  in  heated  attacks  on  their 
opponents  or  to  defend  the  truth  by  arguments  of 


324      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

doubtful  cogency.  At  this  period  the  danger  of 
error  rather  lies  in  a  different  direction,  in  the 
tendency  to  rebound  from  doubt  and  controversy 
toward  affirmative  conclusions  prematurely  drawn. 
The  central  principle  being  accepted  which  not 
long  ago  was  in  dispute,  its  defenders  are  prone  to 
believe  in  its  universal  applicability  and  explana- 
tory force,  its  whilom  adversaries  to  assume  that 
there  is  no  further  need  for  concern  about  its  bear- 
ings on  other  phases  of  thought. 

This  type  of  synthetic  development  is  more  im- 
portant than  the  first,  which  has  been  considered 
in  detail.  The  grounds  of  its  superior  significance 
are  to  be  found  in  the  directness  of  the  attack 
which  it  makes  on  the  crucial  questions  of  the  age. 
It  is  not  so  much  a  rearrangement  of  conceptions 
and  formulas,  which  in  part  consists  in  thought- 
activity,  in  part  follows  on  this,  as  an  immediate 
grapple  writh  the  perplexities  by  which  men's 
minds  have  been  distracted.  If  successful,  it  makes 
a  real  contribution  to  the  solution  of  the  problems 
of  the  time.  Dealing  immediately  with  thought- 
issues,  it  suggests,  in  so  far  as  it  at  all  makes 
headway  with  its  task,  a  reasonable  means  of  es- 
cape from  the  difficulties  under  the  burden  of 
which  thought  has  been  laboring.  As  its  results 
secure  acceptance,  it  leads  men  to  believe  that  the 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    325 

dilemma  of  opposing  theories  is  not  so  exclusive  as 
was  at  first  supposed,  that  views  which  then  ap- 
peared entirely  subversive  of  accepted  statements 
of  truth  may  be  brought  into  agreement,  or  at 
least  into  partial  harmony,  with  principles  which 
they  hold  most  dear.  In  short,  a  few  central  posi- 
tions having  been  successfully  determined,  or  the 
conviction  being  gained  that  the  burning  questions 
are  susceptible  of  answers  not  in  conflict  with  the 
necessary  postulates  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
life,  the  way  lies  open  for  the  advance  from  dis- 
may and  controversy  to  an  era  of  more  stable 
thinking. 

Although  it  possesses  so  great  significance,  the 
mode  of  transition  by  central  adjustment  may  here 
be  passed  without  extended  consideration,  since  a 
conspicuous  example  of  its  working  has  so  im- 
pressed itself  upon  the  thought  of  recent  times 
that  it  has  more  than  once  claimed  attention  in 
this  essay.  The  modern  doctrine  of  evolution,1 
especially  in  its  biological  form,  and  the  course 
of  opinion  in  regard  to  it,  have  illustrated  this 
second  form  of  the  transitional  process  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end.  The  early  stages  of  the  con- 
flict in  England,  when  Mr.  Huxley  in  particular 
by  his  brilliant  dialectic,  and  not  without  a  certain 

i  Cf.  chap.  UT.,  pp.  118-119,  12G  ff.;  chap.  IV.,  pp.  157  ff. 


326      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

joy  in  combat,  pressed  hard  upon  the  supporters  of 
conservative  views ;  the  echoes  of  the  controversy 
in  other  English-speaking  countries,  especially  the 
unhappy  debate  in  the  United  States,  with  further 
misunderstanding  on  both  sides  of  the  logic  of  the 
argument  as  well  as  of  the  bearings  of  the  doc- 
trine upon  ethical  and  religious  principles  ;  the 
spread  of  the  discussion  and  the  confusion  to  Con- 
tinental thought ;  the  beginnings  of  mediation  ;  the 
hasty  and  premature  employment  of  evolutionary 
principles  in  explanation  of  all  kinds  of  questions ; 
and  yet,  despite  unnecessary  quarrels  and  mis- 
guided ventures,  a  settlement  of  the  issue  which 
to  a  degree  releases  the  mind  of  the  time  for 
needed  reflection  on  other  problems  —  the  succes- 
sive phases  of  the  movement  have  closely  par- 
alleled the  line  of  development  which  a  priori  was 
to  have  been  expected. 

In  still  another  respect  the  history  of  the  mod- 
ern theory  of  evolution  exemplifies  the  method 
of  progress  by  central  adjustment :  the  direction  of 
thought  concerning  the  questions  of  the  time  is 
toward  the  future  rather  than  the  past,  hence  it 
gives  promise  for  the  constructive  activity  of  the 
new  age.  This  advantage,  also,  follows  from  the 
essential  nature  of  the  process  as  reflection  upon 
fundamental  problems.     For  it   is  not  to  be   for- 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    327 

gotten  that  the  developmental  synthesis  in  which 
the  progress  from  negative  to  positive  thinking 
has  been  found  to  consist  requires  as  its  central 
and  indisj^ensable  factor  productive,  if  it  should 
not  rather  be  termed  creative,  intellectual  work. 
However  important  conciliation  may  be  when 
principles  of  tried  value  and  discoveries  of  scope 
and  influence  are  to  be  wrought  into  a  consistent 
whole,  conciliation  alone  cannot  be  relied  upon 
as  adequate  to  the  task  in  hand.  It  assists  the 
spirit  of  the  age  to  transcend  the  problems  which 
have  been  thwarting  its  endeavors  to  advance, 
but  it  is  incapable  of  inspiring  progress  when  the 
crisis  of  transition  has  been  passed.  Here  once 
more  the  analogy  of  mental  and  physical  life 
throws  light  upon  the  matter :  convalescence  may 
be  secured  by  the  use  of  remedies,  but  health  comes 
only  with  the  reestablishment  of  normal  function 
and  the  renewal  of  vigor  which  thence  proceeds. 
So  is  it  also  with  the  illnesses  of  thought.  The 
first  steps  back  toward  health  necessarily  include 
movements  of  a  halting  and  tentative  kind.  But 
let  no  one  think  that  continued  groping  is  the 
way  in  which  intellectual  robustness  is  to  be 
regained.  In  order  to  this  there  is  need  for  a  res- 
toration of  activity,  for  the  forthputting  of  intel- 
lectual  power,  for  the   employment   of   recovered 


328      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN  THOUGHT 

strength  in  the  construction  of  thought-principles 
fitted  to  be  the  vehicles  of  the  life  and  culture  of  a 
believing  age. 

In  a  third  form  of  the  transitional  process,  tran- 
sition by  displacement  or  substitution,  the  construc- 
tive and  the  negative  spirit  together  culminate, 
as  one  view  of  the  world  and  life  dislodges  a 
second  to  establish  itself  in  the  other's  room.  So 
Christianity,  at  the  close  of  its  long  battle  with 
heathenism,  overcame  the  pagan  faiths,  and  even 
served  as  a  centre  about  which  the  forces  of  civili- 
zation might  gather  in  the  struggle  to  erect  a 
new  culture  from  the  ruins  left  standing  by  the 
barbarian  destroyers.  So  in  Teutonic  Europe 
Protestantism  supplanted  Catholicism  in  the  Re- 
forming age.  So  liberal  views  of  government 
have  driven  out  tyranny,  or  are  still  engaged  in 
carrying  out  the  substitution  of  free  political  insti- 
tutions for  the  older,  less  liberal  forms.  Here, 
again,  it  is  important  to  note  that  the  process 
of  transition,  in  this  case  a  process  of  expulsion 
and  replacement,  never  reaches  a  final,  or  even  a 
complete  result.  Approximations  to  a  full  and 
definite  exchange  of  one  form  of  positive  culture 
for  another  no  doubt  occur,  the  phenomena  becom- 
ing more  frequent  as  we  ascend  the  stream  of 
civilization  toward  its  source.     But  if  the  process 


THE  CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL  ERAS    329 

be  literally  construed,  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  its  apparent  reality  is  not  due  to  an  illu- 
sion of  distance,  later  thinkers  being  led  to  under- 
estimate the  complexity  and  the  gradualness  of 
the  transitional  change  at  the  same  time  that  they 
exaggerate  the  element  of  completeness  in  the 
supersession  of  the  ancient  by  the  new  regime. 

Of  the  three  types  of  transition  under  considera- 
tion, the  third  stands  nearest  to  the  culture  of  the 
later  age.  In  its  negative  aspect,  as  a  phase  of 
conflict,  it  may  make  its  appearance  early  in  the 
contest  against  the  older  civilization ;  but  its  posi- 
tive results  cannot  be  realized  until  the  struggle 
has  been  brought,  nearly  or  entirely,  to  a  victorious 
close,  so  that  the  new  system  of  thought  and  life 
is  about  to  establish  its  supremacy.  And  as  this 
positive  outcome  is  the  salient  because  the  most 
significant  factor  in  the  process,  transition  by  sub- 
stitution may  be  considered  as  one  of  the  latest  in 
time  of  all  the  phenomena  which  mark  the  develop- 
ment of  a  transitional  age. 

These  characteristics  present  no  obstacles,  how- 
ever, to  the  organic  connection  of  some  or  all  of 
the  several  tendencies  in  the  same  transitional 
movement.  Although  separately  described,  they 
do  not  necessarily  occur  in  isolation ;  the  normal 
case  is  rather  one  of  connection  and  cooperation, 


330      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

just  as  the  situation  has  been  found  to  be  in  regard 
to  the  various  negative  movements  by  whose 
agency  the  era  of  transition  was  brought  on.  Ex- 
pansion of  formulas,  therefore,  central  adjustment, 
displacement  and  substitution,  do  not  denote  sepa- 
rate and  independent  forms  of  change,  but  tendencies 
of  thought  and  life  which  differ  from  one  another 
enough  to  be  considered  in  themselves  distinct,  and 
yet  act  and  react,  affect,  support,  or  reinforce  the 
one  the  other,  as  essential  factors  in  the  total 
movement  of  the  times. 

Perhaps  the  largest  common  element  is  shared 
by  the  method  of  adjustment  and  the  method  of 
substitution,  knowledge  and  emotion  mingling  here 
under  the  influence  of  the  constructive  advance. 
For,  with  the  renewal  of  positive  thinking,  hope 
also  is  reborn,  since  hopefulness  is  the  reflex  effect 
in  consciousness  of  the  promise  of  recovery.  Minds 
of  the  "  liberal "  or  "  progressive  "  order,  in  particu- 
lar the  leaders  of  the  newer  movements,  often  go 
still  further,  transforming  hope  into  sanguine 
anticipation  of  the  speedy  solution  of  all  the  prob- 
lems of  thought  through  the  magic  of  the  principles 
for  which  they  stand.  In  the  event,  these  unrea- 
sonable manifestations  of  confidence  will  be  found 
to  require  limitation,  as  they  also  deserve  the 
criticisms  which  in  the  interest  of  sound  thinking 


THE   CLOSE   OF   TRANSITIONAL  ERAS     331 

have  been  passed  upon  them  at  earlier  stages  of  the 
present  inquiry.1  Even  such  optimistic  exaggera- 
tions, however,  have  a  part  to  play  in  promoting 
intellectual  progress.  In  this  respect  they  may  be 
compared  to  voyages  of  discovery  destined  never 
to  reach  their  goal,  which  nevertheless  reward  the 
traveller,  and  through  him  the  world,  with  valuable 
knowledge  gathered  on  the  way.  The  pole  is  not 
yet  gained,  although  many  brave  explorers  have 
turned  their  faces  thitherward,  but  science  has 
richly  profited  by  their  labors  and  their  sufferings 
in  arctic  lands.  And  if  impossibility  be  substituted 
for  the  extreme  difficulty  of  the  quest,  the  analogy 
will  hold  good  of  thought-voyages  as  well.  Is  the 
intellectual  millennium  ever  to  arrive  ?  Or  is  the 
notion  of  a  completed  theory  of  the  universe  always 
to  remain  an  ideal  conception  fitted  to  lead  men 
farther,  and  ever  farther,  along  the  road  to  truth, 
but  a  chimera  merely  so  soon  as  it  is  transformed 
from  a  guidant  idea  into  an  idea  with  content?2 

Until  the  millennium  of  thought  shall  arrive,  the 
case  is  evident.  Many  lines  of  thought  converge 
to  the  one  conclusion,  that  a  completed  solution 
of  the  universe  is  under  the  actual  conditions  of 

1  Cf.  especially,  chap.  IV.,  pp.  171  ff. 

'2  Cf.  the  Kantian  distinction  between  "regulative"  and  "con- 
stitutive "  ideas  or  principles  in  relation  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
transcendent  world. 


332      TRANSITIONAL   ERAS   IN   THOUGHT 

human  thinking  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility. 
Much  less  is  it  given  to  any  one  age  or  system  to 
finish  the  reflective  work  which  is  laid  upon  differ- 
ent minds  and  eras  as  a  task  common  to  them  all. 
In  order,  nevertheless,  that  the  fruits  of  knowledge 
may  be  fully  reaped,  and,  more  pertinently  to  the 
present  theme,  in  order  that  the  process  of  transi- 
tion may  be  carried  through  to  its  constructive 
stage,  it  is  necessary  that  a  comprehensive  attack 
be  made  upon  the  whole  round  of  ultimate  problems, 
starting  from  the  point  of  vantage  gained  through 
the  labors  of  the  latest  years.  Courage  and  con- 
fidence for  the  enterprise  may  be  in  part  supplied 
by  expectations  of  complete  success  which  never 
can  be  fulfilled.  Hopes  which  are  better  founded, 
because  they  are  more  guarded  and  more  exactly 
conformed  to  the  demands  which  may  reasonably 
be  made  upon  a  given  principle  or  system,  are 
more  favorable  still  to  intellectual  reconstruction. 
They  foster  positive  reflection  on  the  questions  at 
stake  without  suggesting  delusive  estimates  of  the 
results  likely  to  be  attained.  Whatever  of  loss 
they  occasion,  therefore,  by  their  failure  to  encour- 
age audacious  intellectual  enterprises,  they  make 
good  by  their  tendency  to  safeguard  the  mind 
against  wanderings  which  lead  nowhither,  except 
to  disappointment  and  renewed  despair.     Bravery 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL   ERAS     333 

is  indispensable  in  mental  and  physical  undertak- 
ings both,  but  an  excess  of  boldness  is  the  sure 
precursor  of  disaster.1  And  disaster,  when  recovery 
is  making  from  the  disturbed  conditions  of  a  tran- 
sitional age,  means  the  resurgence  of  doubt,  a  swift 
return  to  confusion  and  unbelief,  the  reaction  being 
proportional  to  the  false  anticipations  by  which 
thought  has  been  led  on. 

If  it  were  necessary  to  choose,  however,  be- 
tween the  constructive  thought  which  risks  the 
dangers  of  over-confidence  and  the  timid  thinking 
which  hesitates  to  put  its  strength  to  the  test 
by  facing  serious  issues,  the  decision  need  not  be 
long  postponed.  Active  courage  is  especially  com- 
mended by  the  fact  that  the  transition  from  doubt 
to  belief  —  and  belief,  it  must  be  repeated,  in  this 
connection  denotes  any  form  of  positive  or  con- 
structive as  opposed  to  negative  conviction  —  can- 
not be  effected  by  the  aid  of  theoretical  intelligence 
alone,  but  by  reason  working  in  unison  with  the 
practical  faculties  of  mind.  Emotion  and  will  are 
active  in  the  first  attempts  at  recovery,  when  the 
negative  movement  begins  to  feel  the  slackening 
which  follows  the  culmination  of  its  power.     They 

1  A  classical  example  is  the  decline  of  Hegel's  influence  shortly 
after  his  death  in  1831,  and  the  flood  of  negative  and  materialistic 
views  which  rushed  over  Germany  in  the  middle  period  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 


exert  a  potent  influence  also,  when,  with  the  ebbing 
tide,  the  thoughts  of  men  are  borne  no  longer 
toward  the  breakers,  but  outward  on  a  new  and 
hopeful  voyage.  The  historical  development,  more- 
over, is  the  consequence  of  deep-lying  causes.  It 
is  the  whole  man  that  thinks  and  decides  and 
accepts  and  believes,  not  any  single  side  or  phase 
of  mind  or  any  group  of  faculties  acting  in  iso- 
lation from  the  rest.  And  as  in  the  case  of 
individuals,  so  with  the  mind  of  the  time.  This, 
too,  especially  when  questions  of  practical  moment 
are  at  stake,  or  principles  which  condition  the 
progress  of  culture  and  civilization  at  large  as  well 
as  the  progress  of  abstract  thinking,  functions 
through  the  co-working  of  all  its  several  powers. 
Above,1  thought  so  considered  has  been  described 
as  an  organic  process  rather  than  as  one  which  is 
merely  logical  or  ratiocinative ;  it  might  be  called 
vital  as  well,  were  it  not  for  the  misleading  associa- 
tions which  often  cluster  about  the  term. 

In  order,  therefore,  to  complete  the  advance  from 
a  negative  to  a  positive  age,  developmental  synthesis 
must  conform  to  two  different  yet  related  stand- 
ards :  it  must  satisfy  the  demand  for  conclusions 
in  accord  with  the  results  of  advancing  knowledge  ; 
it  must  meet  the  need  for  principles  fitted  to  serve 

i  pp.  304-306. 


THE   CLOSE   OF  TRANSITIONAL   ERAS     335 

as  the  foundation  and  the  vehicles  of  a  vigorous 
life.  These  constitute  the  criteria  by  which  the 
value  of  constructive  movements  is  to  be  tested. 
Views  of  the  world  and  judgments  of  life  deficient 
in  the  one  respect  or  the  other  at  best  promote 
recoveries  from  doubt  which  are  temporary  only,  or 
partial  in  their  scope.  Principles  or  systems,  on 
the  contrary,  which  combine  truth  and  power,  — 
Christianity  at  the  downfall  of  the  ancient  world, 
the  movements  which  carry  Europe  forward  from 
medievalism  to  modern  times,  even  the  political 
and  intellectual  tendencies  of  the  age  of  revolu- 
tion,—  these,  making  epochs  in  history,  produce 
also  widespread  and  lasting  effects.  It  is  when 
the  results  of  thought  have  entered  into  the  blood, 
when  the  outcome  of  reflection  has  been  trans- 
formed into  habit  or  instinct,  that  intelligence  plays 
its  full  part  in  the  world.  Ideas  are  forces,  nay,  in 
the  last  analysis  there  are  no  forces  comparable 
I  with  ideas,  but  they  do  not  manifest  their  power 
while  they  remain  confined  within  study  walls  or 
the  possession  of  the  mind  on  its  theoretical  side 
alone.  Those  conclusions  of  human  thinking, — 
be  they  principles  of  science  or  literature,  history 
or  art,  philosophy  or  theology  or  morals,  —  which 
are  destined  to  guide  intellectual  and  spiritual  prog- 
ress  because  they  inspire  it,  must   cease  to'  form 


336      TRANSITIONAL  ERAS  IN  THOUGHT 

the  shades  of  abstract  reflection,  must  become 
clothed  upon  with  the  flesh  and  blood  of  desire  and 
interest  and  hope  and  fear  and  aspiration,  must  be 
tried  amid  the  fret  of  life's  struggle  and  life's 
griefs  as  well  as  transfigured  in  the  radiance  of 
life's  joys,  before  they  can  fulfil  their  mission  for 
the  race.  And  the  need  is  doubly  urgent  when 
the  minds  of  men  are  to  be  roused  from  doubting 
despair  to  the  work  of  a  new  constructive  age. 
Then,  above  all,  thought  must  become  conviction, 
reason  find  an  ally  in  will,  belief  pass  over  into 
joyous  faith,  for  so  only  can  they  accomplish  their 
appointed  work. 


INDEX 


Agnosticism,  15,  31  ;  its  doctrine 
of  the  Unknowable,  19,  78, 121- 
122,  124 ;  in  the  present  age,  75, 
76  ff.,  139-140,  291-292  ;  its 
dogmatism,  78,  291-292 ;  its 
melancholy,  79-83  ;  and  theism, 
121-122,  122-125;  and  social 
movements,  203 ;  decline  of, 
240-242  ;  on  the  close  of  transi- 
tional eras,  287-292. 

Anaxagoras,  his  philosophy,  25. 

Anselm,  248. 

Antiquity,  the  era  of  its  final 
decline,   7  ;  morals  in  the  era, 


20-21;    thought    and    political,, Browning,  Robert,  39  note3,  253. 


change,  20  ;  the  influence  of 
Christianity,  30-31,  335;  revi- 
vals of  older  doctrines,  134,  138. 

Aristotle,  9,  20,  30,  57  note,  134- 
135. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  81. 

Atomism,  ancient,  25,  134. 

Atomism,  its  place  in  the  present 
age,  74 ;  its  relations  to  science 
and  theism,  117-118;  its  rela- 
tion to  sociological  thinking,  118, 
197,  205-207. 

Augustine,  St.,  on  social  religion, 
235 ;  on  the  ideal  consciousness 
of  the  Absolute,  248 ;  on  faith 
in  God,  263. 

Authority,  the  seat  of,  a  problem 
for  contemporary  thought,  74-75. 

Bacon,  Francis,  31,  47,  61,  74,  95; 
elements  of  older  views  in,  57 
note ;  scientific  ideal  of,  70,  72. 

Bacon,  Roger,  60,  95. 


Baldwin,  J.  Mark,  210  note,  245 

note. 
Balfour,  A.   J.,  his  Foundations 

of  Belief,  82,  241. 
Baur,  F.  C,  171. 
Bayle,  Pierre,  37. 
Bazard,  Saint-Armand,  4  note,  5 

note. 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  20. 
Bernheim,  E.,  145  note,  150  note, 

169  note. 
Berry,  G.  G.,  146  note. 
Bowne,  B.  P.,  180  note. 
Boyle,  Robert,  60. 


337 


Bruno,  Giordano,  60-61. 
Bunsen,  R.  W.,  109. 
Butler,  Joseph,  241. 

Chateaubriand,  39  note  3. 

Cheyne,  T.  K.,  171. 

Christ,  his  view  of  individual  and 
social  religion,  230-237. 

Church,  the,  its  present  spirit,  5- 
6,  84  ;  in  the  middle  ages,  17, 
54,  55-56  ;  in  eighteenth-century 
France,  25,  64,  65-66,  67,  84, 
189-191  ;  and  social  movements, 
189-191,  196,  200-201 ;  as  a  so- 
cial institution,  225,  226,  229- 
230,  230-237  ;  the  Papal  church 
and  the  Reformation,  302,  303- 
304,  328. 

Cicero,  135. 

Clerk-Maxwell,  James,  109. 

Clifford,  W.  K.,  81,  265. 

Comte,  Auguste,  5  note,  166  note  ; 
and  sociology,  199  note,  205. 


338 


INDEX 


Condillac,  16. 

Conservative  reaction,  at  the  close 
of  transitional  eras,  290  ff . ;  not 
confined  to  theology,  290-297  ; 
value  of,  297  ff. ;  in  earlier  times, 
297  ;  in  recent  times,  298  ;  un- 
fitted to  bring  in  a  new  con- 
structive age,  300-302. 

Contzen,  H.,  180  note,  199  note. 

Cooper,  Anthony  Ashley,  3d  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury,  64. 

Copernican  astronomy,  the,  de- 
structive influence  of,  11-12, 
100-101,  311  ff. ;  replaces  the 
Ptolemaic  system,  88-89 ;  an 
example  of  rational  science,  110  ; 
interpreted  by  the  expansion  of 
formulas,  312-315. 

Copernicus,  12,  70,  109. 

Cousin,  Victor,  34. 

Creighton,  J.  E.,  150  note. 

Criticism,  Biblical,  5-6,  76,  170- 
171. 

Criticism,  historical,  in  the  present 
age,  5-6,  76,  144-145. 

Cuvier,  109. 

Dalton,  J.,  109. 

Darwin,  Charles,  109,  158  ff.,  182. 
See  also  Darwinism ;  Evolution, 
Biological. 

Darwinism,  89 ;  and  teleology, 
126-129 ;  its  reconstructive  in- 
fluence, 127-129,  164-165  ;  and 
history,  157  ff. ;  its  relation  to 
Spencerian  evolution,  160-106  ; 
its  destructive  influence ,  1 64-165. 
See  also  Evolution,  Biological. 

Deism,  31,  37  ;  its  influence  on  the 
French  Illumination,  64 ;  its 
relation  to  science,  99. 

Descartes,  Rene\  31,  74  ;  elements 
of  older  views  in,  57  note  ;  his 
scientific  proclivities,  99. 

Diderot,  Denis,  15 ;  and  the  life 


of  his  time,  25,  72-73  ;  translates 

Shaftesbury 's  ethics  into  French, 

64. 
Dilthey,  "W.,  142  note,  151  note. 
Driver,  S.  R.,  171. 
Dualism,  74  ;  its  relation  to  belief 

in  a  world-ground,  120. 

Eclecticism,  in  transitional  eras, 
32-35,  43,  294-295. 

Eighteenth  century,  the,  7,  31  ; 
decline  of  philosophy  in,  15 ; 
decline  of  religion  and  theology 
in,  16  ;  philosophy  of  religion  in, 
19 ;  ethics  in,  20,  21  ;  political 
change  and  thought,  24-25,  64, 
186  note,  188  ff.,  304,  335  ;  the 
faith-philosophy  in,  37-38;  classi- 
fication of  movements  in,  02- 
63 ;  its  lack  of  historic  insight, 
69, 147-148, 150-151;  influence  of 
science  in,  69-73,  99  ;  history  in, 
140-142,  166-167  ;  social  move- 
ments in,  186  note,  188  ff.  See 
also  Illumination,  the  French. 

Eleatic  philosophy,  the,  25. 

Ellis,  Pi.  L.,  57  note. 

Fncyclopaidia,  the  French,  its  re- 
lation to  life,  25,  72-73. 

Encyclopaedists,  the  French,  25, 
72-73,  304. 

Energy,  the  conservation  and  cor- 
relation of,  76, 110  ;  the  principle 
bears  against  atomism,  118. 

Epicureans,  the,  ethics  of,  20  ;  re- 
ligious doctrine  of,  68  ;  adopt 
atomism,  134;  Epicureanism  at 
the  Renaissance,  135. 

Ethics,  in  transitional  eras,  19-20, 
21-22,  50,  55-56,  83-86,  133,  180, 
294  ;  and  faith,  36-39,  253,  260- 
201,  276-280;  in  relation  to 
modern  science,  114  ff.,  253-256  ; 
and  genetic  explanation,  119, 
159,    180-184  ;     in   relation    to 


INDEX 


339 


evolution,  159,  163-165,  173, 
179-184  ;  in  relation  to  social 
movements,  186,  187-188,  200, 
212-225,  254  ;  the  sceptical  ideal 
of,  287-290. 

Evolution,  Biological,  110  ;  destruc- 
tive influence  of,  76,  101,  126, 
162-165,  312,  325-326;  recon- 
structive influence  of,  118,  127- 
129,  164-165,  172-174,  255,  326  ; 
its  bearing  on  theism,  118,  126- 
129,  163;  its  necessary  varia- 
tions, 128,  178,  181  ;  its  relation 
to  values,  128,  180-184,  310; 
and  genetic  explanation,  148- 
149,  179-184 ;  and  the  unity  of 
history,  153,  155-156  ;  its  rela- 
tion to  history,  157  ff. ;  its  truth, 
157-159,  171  ff. ;  its  significance, 
158-159,  171  ff.  ;  extensions  of, 
159  ;  its  relation  to  cosmical  evo- 
lution, 160-166  ;  and  Hegelian 
development,  166-171  ;  limita- 
tions of,  174  ff. ;  as  exemplifying 
transition  by  central  adjustment, 
325-326.  See  also  Evolution, 
Cosmical. 

Evolution,  Cosmical,  its  destruc- 
tive influence,  76,  164-165  ;  its 
reconstructive  influence,  118- 
119,  164-165,  172-174 ;  and  the 
world-ground,  118-119;  and  the 
unity  of  history,  153,  155-156  ; 
its  relations  to  biological  evolu- 
tion, 100-106  ;  and  history,  165- 
166  ;  its  truth,  171  ff.  ;  its  sig- 
nificance, 171  ff. ;  limitations  of, 
174  ff.;  and  genetic  explanation, 
179-184;  necessary  variations 
of,  178,  181  ;  its  relation  to 
values,  180-184,  310.  See  also 
Evolution,  Biological. 

Faith-philosophy,  the,  in  transi- 
tional eras,  35  ff.,  238 ff.,  294- 


295 ;  in  reaction  from  doubt, 
35  ff.,  238-240,  243-244;  the 
Kantian  doctrine,  37-38,  253, 
276-280,  281 ;  in  reaction  from 
intellectualism,  38,  242-243;  in 
application  to  theoretical  and 
practical  principles,  39-41,  272- 
275  ;  cognitive  and  affective  fac- 
tors in  faith,  41,  245,246-249, 
251,  258-263;  validity  of,  41, 
244,  266,  270-286;  condemned 
by  intellectualists  and  negative 
thinkers,  42,  263-265  ;  faith  as 
ideal  conviction,  240,  249-250, 
251-252,  256-263,  270-271,  272- 

275,  283-286  ;  faith  and  demon- 
stration, 240,  250, 251-252,  272- 

276,  285-286 ;  faith  as  a  faculty 
of  ideas,  244-249  ;  faith  in  God, 
245-246,  248-249,  261-263  ;  faith 
as  assent,  249  ff . ;  essence  of  the 
faith-philosophy,  251-252,  256- 
258 ;  its  historical  recurrence, 
252-254 ;  its  foundation  in  the 
spiritual  nature,  253-256,  258- 
263,  280-283,  284,  285-286  ;  its 
support  from  recent  thinking, 
254-256  ;  as  a  doctrine  of  values, 
259-263,  283-286;  faith  in  a 
moral  order,  260-261  ;  the  sub- 
jectivity of  faith,  263-265,  271- 
272,  284-286  ;  intuitive  and  dis- 
cursive faith,  266-271 ;  criteria 
of  faith,  266,  271-286  ;  Kant's 
criteria,  276-280 ;  criteria  of 
essential  development,  280-283  ; 
criteria  of  worth  or  value,  283- 
286 ;  the  combined  criteria, 
283,  285-286;  the  faith-philos- 
ophy alone  unable  to  bring 
in  new  constructive  eras,  294- 
2115. 

Falckenberg,  R„  37  notes  ».M,  57 
note, 63  note,  69  note2,  99  note  \ 
135  note2,  169  note,  262  note; 


340 


INDEX 


on  mysticism  in  sceptical  eras, 
238. 

Fichte,  J.  G.,  5  note,  123-124. 

Fischer,  Knno,  1G8  note  2. 

Fiske,  John,  his  moral  and  spirit- 
ual earnestness,  84 ;  on  the 
dynamic  conception  of  the  Ab- 
solute, 124 ;  on  evolution  and 
teleology,  128  ;  on  genetic  ex- 
planation, 148  ;  his  essays  on 
religious  questions,  242,  255 
note  ;  on  the  essential  elements 
of  religious  theory,  280  ;  on  the 
effect  of  the  Copernican  astron- 
omy, 312. 

Flint,  R.,  5  note,  121  note  3,  ICG 
note. 

Fowler,  T.,  57  note. 

Fremantle,  W.  H.,  on  social  re- 
ligion, 226,  234  note  K 

Galileo,  12,  60,  70,  109,  312. 
Garvie,  A.  E.,  39  note  2. 
Gassendi,  Pierre,  99. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  141. 
Gore,  C.,  241  note4. 
Gorgias,  77  ;  his  nihilism,  111. 
Grote,  George,  on  Sophism,  48. 

Hamann,  J.  G.,  37  note4. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  39  note  1, 
253. 

Hartenstein,  G.,  264  note. 

Hartford  Seminary  Record,  Tfie, 
197  note  K 

Heath,  D.  D.,  57  note. 

Hegel,  G.  W.  F.,  75,  124,  138, 
263 ;  on  Sophism,  48 ;  on  the 
French  Illumination,  68  ;  on  the 
unity  of  history,  153,  169  ;  and 
the  historico-genetic  movement, 
167-169  ;  his  influence  on  theol- 
ogy 169-171;  and  sociology,  199 
note ;  decline  of  his  influence, 
333  note. 


Helmholtz,  II.  L.  F.  von,  109. 

Ilelve'tius,  262. 

Heracleitan  philosophy,  the,  25, 
134. 

Herder,  J.  G.  von,  as  a  faith-phi- 
losopher, 37  note 4 ;  his  genetic 
conception  of  the  history  of 
mankind,  166-167. 

Hibben,  J.  G.,  168  note1. 

History,  in  the  present  age,  76, 
137  ff.  ;  in  transitional  eras, 
132  ff. ;  and  genetic  explanation, 
137,  146-152,  179-184;  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  140-142, 166- 
167  ;  the  historico-genetic  move- 
ment in  Germany,  141-142,  166- 
171  ;  characteristics  of  later, 
142  ff.  ;  adopts  scientific  meth- 
ods, 142-144,  157 ;  as  criticism, 
144-145,  157  ;  scientific  and  lit- 
erary, 145-146, 157 ;  the  doctrine 
of  impermanence,  149-152  ;  uni- 
ty and  continuity  of,  152-157  ; 
and  evolution,  157  ff.  ;  signifi- 
cance of  the  historico-evolu- 
tionary  movement,  171  ff.  ; 
constructive  influence  of  the 
historico  -  evolutionary  move- 
ment, 172-174  ;  limitations  of 
historico-evolutionary  thought, 
174  ff. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  31,  99. 

Hoffding,  H.,  55  note. 

Holbach,  15  ;  his  materialism, 
68. 

Humanists,  the,  and  the  Reforma- 
tion, 17,  304. 

Humboldt,  Alexander  von,  109. 

Hume,  David,  31,  75,  84,  114,  141, 
241. 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  his  agnosticism, 
77  ;  his  moral  and  spiritual 
earnestness,  84  ;  on  ideal  faith, 
265  ;  in  the  evolution  contro- 
versy, 325-326. 


INDEX 


341 


Idealism,  31 ;  postulates  a  world- 
ground,  120 ;  favors  the  doc- 
trine of  unity  and  continuity, 
156-157  ;  and  history,  168-169 ; 
and  theology,  169-171. 

Illumination,  the  French,  decline 
of  philosophy  in,  15 ;  thought 
and  life  in,  24-25  ;  its  position 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  63  ; 
distinctive  characteristics  of, 
63  ft,  79  ;  its  relation  to  Eng- 
lish thought,  63-64  ;  historical 
conditions  of,  64 ;  aggressive- 
ness of  its  leaders,  64-66  ;  com- 
placency of  its  leaders,  66  ff.  ; 
science  in,  69-73,  99  ;  and  his- 
tory, 69,  141. 

Illumination,  the  German,  its  ec- 
lecticism, 34  ;  its  position  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  63. 

Independent,  T/ie,  125  note. 

Inge,  W.  R.,  239  note  K 

Ingersoll,  Robert  G.,  31  note. 

Inquisition,  the,  302. 

Intellectual  ism,  its  place  in  mod- 
ern thought,  38 ;  opposed  by 
the  faith-philosophy,  242-243. 

Jacobi,  F.  H.,  chief  of  the  Glau- 
ben&philosophen,  37,  253  ;  criti- 
cism of  his  doctrine  of  faith, 
263-264. 

James,  William,  his  doctrine  of 
the  will  to  believe,  39  note l, 
239-242,  253,  260  note,  264- 
265  ;  his  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience,  242. 

Jesuit  society,  the,  and  the  Catho- 
lic reaction,  302. 

John,  the  Apostle,  on  social  re- 
ligion, 235. 

Jones,  II.,  39  note  8. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  31,  44,  70,  123- 
124,    138,  253,    331    note2;  his 


doctrine  of  faith,  37-38,  253, 
264,  276-280,  281  ;  on  pure  rea- 
son and  practical  reason,  37-38, 
277-278 ;  his  influence  against 
intellectualism,  38,  279-280  ;  his 
criticism  of  Jacobi's  doctrine  of 
faith,  264  ;  and  values,  279-280. 

Kepler,  12,  60,  61,  70,  109. 

Kidd,  Benjamin,  his  Social  Evo- 
lution, 240-241. 

Kirchhoff,  G.  R.,  109. 

Knowledge,  the  theory  of,  and  the 
doctrine  of  relativity,  13-14 ;  posi- 
tive influence  of  science  on,  51, 
77-78,  96-97,  106,  110-114,  121- 
122  ;  and  the  doctrine  of  unity 
and  continuity,  156-157.  See 
also  Agnosticism,  Positivism. 

Koch,  R.,  109. 

Kueneii,  A.,  171. 

Ladd,  G.  T.,  4  note,  104  note,  245 
note. 

La  Mettrie,  15. 

Langley,  S.  P.,  88  note. 

Langlois,  C.  V.,  146  note. 

Lazarus,  M.,  208  note. 

Lefevre,  A.,  150  note. 

Leibnitz,  G.  W.  von,  124. 

Lessing,  G.  E.,  2,  263;  his  genetic 
conception  of  religion,  166-167. 

Linnaeus,  109. 

Locke,  John,  influence  of  his  views 
on  the  French  Illumination,  64, 
71  ;  influenced  by  science,  99; 
his  deiinition  of  belief,  250. 

Lotze,  R.  II.,  on  the  uniformity  of 
nature,  113  note  ;  his  dynamism, 
124  ;  on  the  ideal  consciousness 
of  God,  248,  and  note  ;  on  theo- 
retical and  practical  faith,  273, 
note l. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  81. 

Luthi  r.  Martin,  11  ;  his  mysticism, 
61  ;  his  insistence  on  dogma,  61- 


342 


INDEX 


62  ;  his  moderation,  65  ;  excom- 
municated, 302  ;  leads  the  Ref- 
ormation, 303-304. 

Mansel,  H.  L.,  39,  note2. 

Martineau,  James,  292-293. 

Materialism,  in  the  French  Illu- 
mination, 67-68,  69-73  ;  its  re- 
lation to  science,  101-104 ; 
postulates  a  world-ground,  120; 
favors  the  doctrine  of  unity  and 
continuity,  155-157  ;  and  evolu- 
tion, 163-165  ;  and  social  move- 
ments, 201-201 ;  after  Hegel  in 
Germany,  333  note. 

Mathews,  Shailer,  on  the  social 
teaching  of  Jesus,  232-233. 

Mechanical  philosophy,  the,  in  the 
French  Illumination,  69-73 ;  in 
the  present  age,  74  ;  its  relation 
to  science,  101-104  ;  favors  the 
doctrine  of  unity  and  continuity, 
155-157. 

Melanchthon,  Philipp,  62. 

Mendelssohn,  M.,  264. 

Merz,  J.  T.,  142  note. 

Methodist  Review,  The,  45  note1, 
116  note. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  5  note,  20,  47  ; 
his  moral  and  spiritual  earnest- 
ness, 84. 

Miller,  D.  S.,  265. 

Monism,  74;  and  sociology,  197-198. 

Montesquieu,  his  introduction  of 
English  political  ideas  into 
France,  63-64  ;  as  an  historian, 
141. 

Morley,  John,  72  note,  142  note. 

Mysticism,  mediaeval,  36,  243 ;  in 
Luther,  61  ;  in  sceptical  eras, 
238-239  ;  mystical  ecstasy,  249. 

Naturalism,  155-157.  See  also 
Materialism,  Mechanical  Philos- 
ophy. 


Neo-Flatonism,  134,  135. 

Newton,  Isaac,  60,  107  ;  influence 
of  his  views  on  the  French  Illu- 
mination, 64,  71. 

New  World,  The,  1  note. 

Nominalism,  31. 

Occam,  47.    See  also  Nominalism. 
Osborn,  II.  F.,  159  note1. 

Pantheism,  74;  favored  by  later 
science  and  philosophy,  125-127  ; 
scientific  evidence  against,  127- 
131  ;  and  Idealism,  170. 

Pascal,  Blaise,  37. 

Pasteur,  L.,  109. 

Paul,  the  Apostle,  on  individual 
and  social  religion,  234-235,  236. 

Paulsen,  F.,  39  note1,  150  note. 

Peabody,  F.  G.,  199  note,  229  note. 

Phenomenalism,  76  ff.,  156  note2. 
See  also  Agnosticism,  Positivism. 

Philosophy,  its  decline  in  transi- 
tional eras,  3-4,  8,  12-15,  49, 
50-52,  53-57  ;  its  meaning  and 
definition,  45-46,  104  note  ;  its 
relation  to  science,  77-78,  90-92, 
94,  101-104,  107-110 ;  and  his- 
tory, 152-157,  167-169. 

Pietism,  243. 

Plato,  9,  20,  30,  44,  134-135. 

Positivism,  its  philosophy  of  reli- 
gion, 19 ;  characteristic  of  present 
age,  76  ff.  See  also  Agnosti- 
cism. 

Post- Aristotelian  Era,  the,  6,  30  ; 
decline  of  philosophy  in,  14 ; 
ethics  in,  20-22  ;  thought  and 
political  change  in,  25-26  ;  dis- 
tinctive character  of,  47,  50 ; 
revivals  of  older  doctrines  in, 
134,  138. 

Present  Age,  the,  an  era  of  tran- 
sition, 5-6  ;  influence  of  science 
in,  5-6,  75-80,97-100, 101,110  ff., 


INDEX 


343 


155  ff.,  201-204  ;  Biblical  criti- 
cism in,  5-6,  76,  170-171  ;  reli- 
gion and  theology  in,  5-6,  83-86, 
115  ff.,  225  ff.,  254-256  ;  the  phi- 
losophy of  religion  in,  19  ;  ethics 
in,  20,  21,  212  ff.,  254-256  ;  the 
faith-philosophy  in ,  38-39, 239  ff ., 
distinctive  character  of,  47,  48, 
74-86,  178-179  ;  complexity  of, 
74-76  ;  agnosticism  in,  75,  76- 
79,  139-140,  178,  291-292  ;  his- 
tory in,  76,  137  ff.  ;  constructive 
movements  in,  77-78,  83-86, 
110  ff.,  139-140,  254-256  ;  prac- 
tical dissatisfaction  in,  79-86  ; 
earnestness  of,  83-86  ;  revivals 
of  older  doctrines  in,  137-138  ; 
evolution  in,  155  ff.,  social  move- 
ments in,  188  ff.  ;  close  of,  292- 
293. 

Protagoras,  47,  77  ;  his  doctrine  of 
relativity,  13-14. 

Ptolemaic  astronomy,  the,  88-89, 
311-312. 

Pyrrho,  77,  291. 

Quintilian,  135. 

Reformation,  the  Protestant,  17, 
56,  328  ;  its  spread  to  Western 
world,  53 ;  dogma  in,  61-62  ; 
and  social  unrest,  186  note,  189 
note  ;  the  Counter-Reformation, 
302  ;  led  by  Luther,  303-304. 
See  also  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation,  the  Era  of  the. 

Reid,  Thomas,  31. 

Religion  and  theology,  decline  of, 
in  transitional  eras,  3-4,  8,  15- 
19,  53-56,  64,  65-68;  in  the 
present  age,  5-6,  76,  83-86, 
115  ff.,  170-171,  225  ff.,  254- 
256  ;  their  relation  to  science,  5, 
11-12,  75-80,  90-92,  94,  101- 
104,  114-131,  254-256,  311  ff.  ; 


the  philosophy  of,  prominent  in 
transitional  eras,  18-19,  132 ; 
genetic  explanation  of,  147,  149, 
159,  180-184 ;  their  relation  to 
evolution,  159,  163-165,  173, 
179-184,  254-255,  326;  their 
relation  to  Hegelianism,  169- 
171 ;  their  relation  to  social 
movements,  187-188,  189-191, 
196-197,  198-204,  225-237,  254- 
255.  See  also  Faith-philosophy, 
Theism. 

Renaissance,  the,  17  ;  its  relation 
to  antiquity,  58-59.  See  also 
Renaissance  and  the  Reforma- 
tion, the  Era  of  the  ;  Revival  of 
Learning. 

Renaissance  and  the  Reformation, 
the  Era  of  the,  7,  9,  11-12,  31, 
333  ;  decline  of  philosophy,  14- 
15,  53-56  ;  decline  of  religion 
and  theology,  16-17,  55-56  ;  the 
church  in  the  era,  17,  54,  55-56, 
302,  303-304,  328  ;  ethical  prac- 
tice in,  20,  21,  53-56  ;  politics 
and  thought  in,  26,  186  note, 
189  note;  distinctive  character 
of,  47,  52  ff.,  66-67,  79  ;  great- 
ness of,  52-54  ;  positive  thought 
in,  55  ff.  ;  media? val  survivals 
in,  56  ;  relation  of  its  destructive 
and  constructive  work,  59-62, 
79  ;  science  in,  69-70,  98,  100- 
101,  311  ff. ;  revivals  of  ancient 
philosophy  in,  134-135. 

Renouvier,  C. ,  5  note. 

Revival  of  learning,  the,  destruc- 
tive influence  of,  11  ;  historical 
tendency  of,  58-59. 

Ritschl,  Albrecht,  his  philosophy 
of  religion,  39  note2,  253. 

Romanes,  G.  J.,  his  doctrine 
of  faith,  38  note2,  241,  253; 
his  sceptical  melancholy,  81- 
82. 


344 


INDEX 


Romantic  school,  the,  its  relation 
to  the  faith-philosophy,  38  ;  and 
history,  167. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  15  ;  and  the  life 
of  his  time,  25  ;  his  sentimental 
deism,  37,  247  note,  253 ;  his 
reply  to  Helv6tius,  262  ;  effect 
of  his  doctrines,  304. 

Rowland,  II.  A.,  88  note. 

Royce,  Josiah,  167  note  2. 

Sabatier,  A.,  313  note. 

St.  Simon,  C.  H.,  Comte  de,  4  note. 

Scepticism,  inadequacy  of,  30-32  ; 
and  social  movements,  198-204; 
dogmatic  scepticism  on  the  close 
of  transitional  eras,  287-292. 

Schaff,  Philip,  306. 

Schiller,  J.  C.  F.  von,  39  note8. 

Schleiermacher,  F.  E.  D.,  75  ;  his 
relation  to  the  faith-philosophy, 
38. 

Scholasticism,  15,  17,  54,  55,  243  ; 
its  constructive  influence,  51  ; 
opposed  by  early  science,  98. 

Schopenhauer,  A.,  124. 

Science,  in  present  age,  5-6,  75- 
80,  97-100,  101,  110  ff.,  155-156, 
157  ff.,  201-204,  253-256;  de- 
structive influence  of,  5-6,  11- 
12,  69-73,  75-80,  100-101,  102, 
104,  106,  115  ff.,  102-165,  201- 
204,  311  ff.,  325-326;  its  rela- 
tion to  theology  and  religion,  5, 
11-12,  75-80,  90-92,  94,  101- 
104,  114-131,  163-165,  254-256, 
311  ff.,  326  ;  in  transitional  eras, 
8-9,  90  ff. ;  at  transition  to  mod- 
ern times,  11-12,  60-61,  69-70, 
98,  100-101,  311  ff.  ;  construc- 
tive and  reconstructive  influence 
of,  51,  77-78,  106  ff.,  172-174, 
253-256  ;  in  the  French  Illumi- 
nation, 69-73,  99  ;  meaning  and 
definition  of,  77-78,  90, 101-104, 


105-107  ;    its   tendency  toward 
metaphysics,    77-78,     10] -101  ; 
certainty   and    uncertainty    in, 
87-90,    94-97  ;    its    relation    to 
philosophy,  90-92,  94,  101-104, 
107-110  ;     its     great     influence 
throughout    the    modern    era, 
97   ff.  ;  its    rational    character, 
107-110 ;  and  ethics,  114  ff.,  253- 
256  ;     and     history,     155-156, 
157  ff.  ;  and  radical  social  move- 
ments, 201-204. 
Scientific    method,    the,    validity 
of,  87,  89,  94-97,  100;  rational 
elements  in,  108-110;   adopted 
by   recent   historians,   142-144, 
157. 
Seignobos,  C,  146  note. 
Seth,  A.,  239  note  1,  249  note. 
Smith,  George  Adam,  7  note,  234 

note. 
Sneath,  E.  Hershey,  39  note  8. 
Social  ethics,  186,  187-188,  200, 
212  ff.,  254  ;  not  altruism  alone, 
215-216  ;  the  duties  of  the  citi- 
zen, 216-219;  duties  to  classes 
by  classes,  219-222  ;  duties  of 
the  state,  222-225  ;  and  religion, 
227-230. 
Social  movements,  their  relation 
to  thought,  185  ff.  ;  and  ethics, 
186,  187-188,  200,  212  ff.,  254- 
255  ;  and  religion,  187-188,  196- 
197,  198-204,  225-237,  254-255; 
in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries,  188  ff.  ;  and  reli- 
gious liberty,  188-191  ;  and 
civil  liberty,  191-194  ;  and  mate- 
rial betterment,  194-196,  201- 
204,  212-216,  219-221,  227-229; 
and  later  thinking,  197-198  ; 
their  intellectual  alliances,  198- 
204  ;  and  Christianity,  199-201, 
219,  225,  226,  230-237  ;  con- 
structive influence    of,  204   ff.  ; 


INDEX 


345 


and  sociology,  204-207  ;  and 
psychology,  207-212  ;  and  in- 
creased ethical  interest,  212- 
215 ;  and  the  duties  of  the  citi- 
zen, 215-219 ;  duties  to  classes 
by  classes,  219-222  ;  and  new 
views  of  the  state,  222-225. 
Social  psychology,  207-212  ;  folk- 
psychology,  208  ;  the  social  con- 
sciousness, 208-212,  216-217. 
Social  religion,  196-197,  197-198, 
200-201,  225-237,  254-255 ;  im- 
portance of,  for  discussion,  225- 
22(i  ;  made  a  universal  remedy, 
225 ;  and  individual  religion, 
226,  230-232,  233-235;  gain 
from,  227-228,  236-237  ;  true 
meaning  of,  228-230  ;  of  Christ, 
230  ff.  ;  in  the  Old  Testament, 
233-234,  236  ;  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, 234-236. 
Society,  organic  view  of,  205-207  ; 

biological  view  of,  211-212. 
Sociology,  negative  influence  of, 
101  ;  genetic  explanation  in,  149, 
159  ;  and  monism,  197-198  ;  ori- 
gin and  definition  of,  204-205  ; 
and  psychology,  207-212  ;  and 
biology,  208  ;  and  ethics,  212  ff., 
254-255  ;  and  the  state,  222-225 ; 
and  religion,  225  ff.,  254-255. 
Socrates,  9, 30, 44, 52,  301, 309 note. 
Sophistic  Era,  the,  in  Greece,  6, 
9,  30  ;  decline  of  philosophy,  12- 
14,  49  ;  decline  of  religion  and 
theology,  10,  4!) ;  moral  decline, 
21,50  ;  political  movements  and 
Sophism,  25,  49,  186  note  ;  dis- 
tinctive character  of  the  era,  47- 
50,  66,  67,  79 ;  causes  of  its  ex- 
treme negation,  50-52  ;  Sophism 
and  recent  thought,  77-80,  111  ; 
elements  of  value  in  Sophism, 
105  ;  lack  of  historic  insight,  147. 
Spedding,  James,  57  note. 


Spencer,  Herbert,  ethics  of,  20-21  ; 
his  expression  of  agnostic  regret, 
82-83  ;  his  moral  and  spiritual 
earnestness,  84  ;  his  doctrine  of 
the  Unknowable,  121-122,  124; 
his  dynamic  conception  of  the 
Absolute,  121,  122-125  ;  his  evo- 
lution in  relation  to  Darwinism, 
166-166 ;  destructive  influence 
of  his  evolution,  164-165  ;  recon- 
structive influence  of  his  evolu- 
tion, 164-165  ;  his  evolution  and 
history,  165-166 ;  on  society  as 
an  organism,  211  note.  See  also 
Evolution,  Cosmical. 

Spinoza,  B.  de,  31,  37,  124, 
126. 

State,  the,  artificial  theory  of,  147, 
180, 206-207 ;  genetic  view  of,  180, 
181,  206-207  ;  church  and  state 
in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries,  189-191  ;  collectivistic 
view  of,  222-225. 

Staudinger,  F.,  213  note. 

Stein,  L.,  199  note. 

Steinthal,  H.,  208  note. 

Stephen,  Sir  Leslie,  5  note,  20, 
142  note,  211  note. 

Stephens,  H.  Morse,  145  note,  146 
note. 

Stoicism,  20,  134,  135. 

Strauss,  D.  F.,  171. 

Stuckenberg,  J.  H.  W.,  45  note2, 
104  note,  195,  215  note. 

Sully,  James,  245  note,  319  note. 

Taine,  H.  A.,  on  the  French  Il- 
lumination, 69  note4. 

Teleological  argument,  the,  as  af- 
fected by  modern  science,  120- 
131 ;  as  affected  by  evolution, 
126-129,  163. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  39  note  3,  268. 

Theism,  as  affected  by  science,  117- 
131  ;    and    the    postulate    of  a 


346 


INDEX 


world-ground,  117-122, 262  ;  and 
agnosticism,  121-125  ;  and  mod- 
ern dynamism,  122-125  ;  and 
biological  evolution,  120-129, 
163 ;  and  cosmical  evolution, 
164-165, 180-182  ;  and  Idealism, 
170  ;  as  dependent  on  ideal  faith, 
245-246,  248-249,  261-263  ;  the 
Kantian,  276-280. 

Thought,  its  meaning  in  this  dis- 
cussion, 3,  45-46 ;  its  place  in 
science,  108-110  ;  and  social 
movements,  185  ff.  ;  an  organic 
growth,  305-306,  334  ;  as  syn- 
thetic correlation,  307,  319-322  ; 
as  development,  308-309 ;  de- 
pendent on  symbolic  represen- 
tation, 319-322.  See  also 
Thought  and  Life. 

Thought  and  life,  in  transitional 
eras,  21-22,  23-28,  44,  185  ff.  ; 
in  the  French  Illumination,  25, 
72-73;  at  the  close  of  transi- 
tional eras,  44,  333-336. 

Transitional  eras,  the  Close  of, 
29  ff.,  287  ff.  ;  thought  and  life 
in,  44,  333-336  ;  as  viewed  by 
dogmatic  scepticism,  287-292  ; 
characteristic  phenomena  of, 
294-295  ;  necessity  for  thorough 
thinking  in,  295-296,  307,  326- 
328  ;  the  method  of  conservative 
reaction,  296-302;  the  method 
of  negation,  302-304  ;  the  method 
of  combination,  304-305 ;  the 
method  of  synthetic  develop- 
ment, 306-309  ;  no  complete  or- 
final  system,  309-310,  330-333  ; 
transition  by  expansion  of  for- 
mulas, 311  ff . ;  limits  of  expan- 
sive interpretation,  315-319 ; 
expansion  grounded  in  the  nature 
of  thought,  319-322  ;  transition 
by  central  adjustment,  323-328  ; 
transition  by  substitution,  328- 


329;  union  of  different  forms 
of  transition,  329-330. 

Transitional  eras  in  thought,  defi- 
nition of,  1-4,  45-46  ;  decline  of 
philosophy  in,  3-4,  8,  12-15 ; 
decline  of  religion  and  theology 
in,  3-4,  8,  15-19;  lawful  char- 
acter of,  4  note,  7,  29,  46,  292- 
294;  diversity  of,  7-9,  46-48; 
political  movements  in,  8,  24- 
26,  185  ff.  ;  science  in,  8-9,  90  ff.  ; 
abnormal  character  of,  9  ff.,  287, 
293  ;  connection  of  negative  and 
positive  thought  in,  10-12,  57- 
58,  79,  104-105,  139,  303  ;  theo- 
retical dissatisfaction  in,  13-14, 
29-32,  43,  294  ;  practical  thought 
in,  17  ff.,  39-41,  238  ff. ;  practi- 
cal dissatisfaction  in,  17-20,  32, 
43,  294  ;  ethics  in,  19-23,  186  ; 
origin  of  ethical  systems  in,  20  ; 
complexity  of,  23  ;  thought  and 
life  in,  21-22,  23-28,  44,  185  ff., 
333-336  ;  propagandism  in,  26- 
28  ;  culmination  of,  28-29  ;  close 
of,  29  ff.,  287  ff.  ;  eclecticism  in, 
32-35,  43,  294-295;  revival  of 
older  doctrines  in,  32,  58-59, 
132  ff.  ;  the  faith-philosophy  in, 
35  ff.,  238  ff.,  294-295;  their 
connection  with  the  past,  57-58, 
308-309 ;  history  in,  132  ff.  ; 
social  movements  in,  185  ff.  See 
also  Transitional  Eras,  the  Close 
of. 

Trent,  the  Council  of,  302. 

Tubingen  school,  the,  171. 

Twofold  truth,  doctrine  of  the,  15, 
36. 

Uniformity  of  nature,  the,  con- 
firmed by  science,  113-114  ;  its 
relations  to  theism,  119,  126- 
127, 129-130 ;  and  Idealism,  170 ; 
and  faith,  264-265. 


INDEX 


347 


Van  Dyke,  Henry,  83  note. 

Veitch,  J.,  57  note. 

Voltaire,  15,  304  ;  and  the  life  of 

his  time,  25  ;  introduces  English 

doctrines  into  France,  64,  70 ; 

opposes  the  church,  65,  67-68  ; 

as  an  historian,  139. 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russel,  109,  313 
note. 

Wallace,  W.,  168  note1. 

Ward,  James,  121  note3  ;  his  Nat- 
uralism and  Agnosticism,  241- 
242. 


Wegele,  F.  X.  von,  167  note2. 

Wellhausen,  J.,  171. 

Winckelmann,  J.  J.,  his  genetic 
conception  of  the  history  of  an- 
cient art,  166-167. 

Worth,  or  Values,  and  evolution, 
128,  180-184,  310;  and  faith, 
259-263,  283-286. 

Wright,  G.  Fred.,  88  note. 

Wundt,  W.,  210  note,  212  note. 

Zeller,  E.,  25  note,  48  note3;  on 

conservative  reaction,  301. 
Ziegler,  T.,  213  note. 


New  Testament   Handbooks 


EDITED   BY 

SHAILER  MATHEWS 

Professor  of  New  Testament  History  and  Interpretation, 
University  of  Chicago 

Arrangements  are  made  for  the  following  volumes,  and  the  publishers 
will,  on  request,  send  notice  of  the  issue  of  each  volume  as  it  appears  and 
each  descriptive  circular  sent  out  later;  such  requests  for  information 
should  state  whether  address  is  permanent  or  not :  — 

The  History  of  the  Textual  Criticism  of  the 
New  Testament 

Prof.  Marvin  R.  Vincent,  Professor  of  New  Testament  Exegesis, 
Union  Theological  Seminary.  \_Now  ready. 

Professor  Vincent's  contributions  to  the  study  of  the  New  Testament  rank  him 
among  the  first  American  exegetes.  His  most  recent  publication  is  "  A  Critical 
and  Exegetical  Commentary  on  the  Epistles  to  the  Philippians  and  to  Philemon" 
{International  Critical  Commentary),  which  was  preceded  by  a  "  Students' 
New  Testament  Handbook,"  "  Word  Studies  in  the  New  Testament,"  and 
others. 

The  History  of  the  Higher  Criticism  of  the 
New  Testament 

Prof.  Henry  S.  Nash,  Professor  of  New  Testament  Interpretation, 
Cambridge  Divinity  School.  [Now  ready. 

Of  Professor  Nash's  "  Genesis  of  the  Social  Conscience,"  The  Outlook  said:  "  The 
results  of  Professor  Nash's  ripe  thought  are  presented  in  a  luminous,  compact, 
and  often  epigrammatic  style.  The  treatment  is  at  once  masterful  and  helpful, 
and  the  book  ought  to  be  a  quickening  influence  of  the  highest  kind;  it  surely 
will  establish  the  fame  of  its  author  as  a  profound  thinker,  one  from  whom  we 
have  a  right  to  expect  future  inspiration  of  a  kindred  sort." 

Introduction  to  the  Books  of  the  New  Testament 

Prof.  B.  Wisner  Bacon,  Professor  of  New  Testament  Interpretation, 
Yale  University.  [Now  ready. 

Professor  Bacon's  works  in  the  field  of  Old  Testament  criticism  include  "  The 
Triple  Tradition  of  Exodus,"  and  "  The  Genesis  of  Genesis,"  a  study  of  the 
documentary  sources  of  the  books  of  Moses.  In  the  field  of  New  Testament 
study  he  has  published  a  number  of  brilliant  papers,  the  most  recent  of  which  is 
"  The  Autobiography  of  Jesus,"  in  the  A  merican  journal  of  Theology. 

The  History  of  New  Testament  Times  in  Palestine 

Prof.  Shailkr  Mathews,  Professor  of  New  Testament  History  and 
Interpretation,  The  University  of  Chicago.  [Now  ready. 

The  Congregationalist  says  of  Prof.  Shailer  Mathews's  recent  work,  "  The  Social 
Teaching  of  Jesus"  :  "Re-reading  deepens  the  impression  that  the  author  is 
scholarly,  devout,  awake  to  all  modern  thought,  and  yet  conservative  and  pre- 
eminently sane.  If,  after  reading  the  chapters  dealing  with  Jesus'  attitude 
toward  man,  society,  the  family,  the  state,  and  wealth,  the  reader  will  not  agree 
with  us  in  this  opinion,  we  greatly  err  as  prophets." 


The  Life  of  Paul 

Prof.  Rcsh  Rhees,  President  of  the  University  of  Rochester. 

Professor  Rhees  is  well  known  from  his  series  of  "  Inductive  Lesions  "  contributor 
to  the  Sunday  School  Times.  His  "  Outline  of  the  Life  of  Paul,"  privately 
printed,  has  had  a  flattering  reception  from  New  Testament  scholars. 

The  History  of  the  Apostolic  Age 

Dr.  C.  W.  Votaw,  Instructor  in  New  Testament  Literature,  The 
University  of  Chicago. 

Of  Dr.  Votaw's  "  Inductive  Study  of  the  Founding  of  the  Christian  Church,"  Modern 
Church,  Edinburgh,  says:  "No  fuller  analysis  of  the  later  books  of  the  New 
Testament  could  be  desired,  and  no  better  programme  could  be  offered  for  their 
study,  than  that  afforded  in  the  scheme  of  fifty  lessons  on  the  Founding  of  the 
Christian  Church,  by  Clyde  W.  Votaw.  It  is  well  adapted  alike  for  practical 
and  more  scholarly  students  of  the  Bible." 

The  Teaching  of  Jesus 

Prof.  George  B.  Stevens,  Professor  of  Systematic  Theology,  Yale 
University.  [Now  ready. 

Professor  Stevens's  volumes  upon  "  The  Johannine  Theology,"  "  The  Pauline  The- 
ology," as  well  as  his  recent  volume  on  "  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament," 
have  made  him  probably  the  most  prominent  writer  on  biblical  theology  la 
America.     His  new  volume  will  be  among  the  most  important  of  his  works. 

The  Biblical  Theology  of  the  New  Testament 

Prof.  E.  P.  Gould,  Professor  of  New  Testament  Interpretation,  Prot- 
estant Episcopal  Divinity  School,  Philadelphia.     [Now  ready. 

Professor  Gould's  Commentaries  on  the  Gospel  of  Mark  (in  the  International  Criti- 
cal Commentary)  and  the  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians  (in  the  American  Com- 
mentary) are  critical  and  exegetical  attempts  to  supply  those  elements  which 
arc  lacking  in  existing  works  of  the  same  general  aim  and  scope. 

The  History  of  Christian  Literature  until  Eusebius 

Prof.  J.  W.  Plainer,   Professor  of  Early  Church   History,   Harvard 

University. 
Professor  Platner's  work  will  not  only  treat  the  writings   of  the  early   Christian 
writers,  but  will  also  treat  of  the  history  of  the  New  Testament  Canon. 

OTHERS  TO    FOLLOW 

"  An  excellent  series  of  scholarly,  yet  concise  and  inexpensive  New  Testament  hand- 
books."—  Christian  Advocate,  New  York. 
'  These  books  are   remarkably  well  suited  in  language,  style,  and  price,  to  al 
gtudents  of  the  New  Testament."  —  The  Congregationalist,  Boston. 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


THE  QUEST  OF  HAPPINESS 

A  STUDY  OF  VICTORY  OVER  LIFE'S  TROUBLES 
By  NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 

Pastor  of  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn;  author  of"  The 

Influence  of  Christ  in  Modern  Life"  etc. 

Cloth,  Decorated  Borders,  $1.50  net 

COMMENTS 

I  find  "  The  Quest  of  Happiness "  a  very  rich  and  beauti- 
ful work.  It  is  eminently  a  book  for  the  home.  Wherever  it 
is  known  it  must  make  life  sweeter  and  more  wholesome. 
Philip  S.  Moxom,  Pastor  of  South  Congregational  Church, 
Springfield,  Mass. 

It  is  a  book  full  of  help  and  sympathy,  marked  by  a  wide 
acquaintance  with  literature  and  with  life,  and  by  a  true  in- 
sight into  those  conditions  which  make  for  the  truest  and  best 
existence.  S.  P.  Cadman,  Pastor  of  Central  Congregational 
Church,  Brooklyn. 

It  is  a  consummate  statement  of  the  highest  conception  of 
the  nature  of  human  life,  and  of  the  only  methods  by  which 
its  meaning  and  possibilities  can  be  attained.  Dr.  Hillis  is  not 
only  a  great  master  of  style,  but  a  serene  satisfaction  with 
God's  method  of  moral  government  breathes  from  every  page 
and  makes  the  teacher  trustworthy.  Charles  Frederic 
Goss. 

"The  Quest  of  Happiness"  is  Dr.  Hillis's  very  best  book. 
It  is  strong,  vivid,  clear,  and  has  a  certain  indefinable  human 
quality  which  will  be  sure  to  give  it  a  large  circulation  and 
make  it  a  source  of  great  helpfulness.  I  especially  enjoyed  the 
"Forewords."  They  would  make  an  attractive  volume  in 
themselves.  Amory  H.  Bradford,  Pastor  of  First  Congre- 
gational Church,  Montclair,  N.  J. 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


Jesus   Christ 
and   the   Social   Ouestion 

An  Exa.min3.tion  of  the  Teaching 
of  Jesus  in  its  Relation  to  Some 
Problems  of  Modern  Social  Life 

By  FRANCIS  GREENWOOD  PEABODY 

Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals, 
Harvard  University 

i2mo.    Cloth.     $1.50 

"The  author  is  professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, and  his  book  is  a  critical  examination  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  in  its  relation  to  some  of  the  problems  of  modern  social  life. 
Professor  Peabody  discusses  the  various  phases  of  Christian  social- 
ism in  this  country  and  in  Europe." —  The  Baltimore  Sun. 

"  It  is  vital,  searching,  comprehensive.  The  Christian  reader  will 
find  it  an  illumination  ;  the  non-Christian  a  revelation." 

—  The  Epworth  Herald. 

"  Discussing  in  '  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question  '  the  com- 
prehensiveness of  the  Master's  teaching,  Francis  Greenwood  Pea- 
body,  Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Harvard  University, 
says  that  'each  new  age  or  movement  or  personal  desire  seems  to 
itself  to  receive  with  a  peculiar  fulness  its  special  teaching.  The 
unexhausted  gospel  of  Jesus  touches  each  new  problem  and  new 
need  with  its  illuminating  power.'  "  —  The  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 

"  A  thoughtful  and  reflective  examination  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus 
in  relation  to  some  of  the  problems  of  modern  social  life." 

—  The  Louisville  Courier-Journal, 


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66  FIFTH   AVENUE,    NEW   YORK 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

is  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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